The US cannot decide on a deal between Serbia and Kosovo

American officials are making contradictory statements regarding information that has appeared in the press about support for the idea of ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbthe exchange of territories between Serbia and the province of Kosovo and Metohija captured by Albanian separatists.

The reason was an article in EUobserver, which stated that the United States would not mind if Belgrade and Pristina exchange territories. However, soon the special representative of the US President Richard Grenell publicly disowned this idea, and the special envoy of the US Secretary of State for the Western Balkans Matthew Palmer decided to remain silent.

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“False information,” Richard Grenell commented on the text of the European publication on Twitter. – I am for what the parties agree on in the dialogue. I'm focused on economic development, not politics."

“We do not support the exchange of territories or the creation of precedents that may cause more problems than solutions, but both sides must be creative in finding a solution,” the US embassy in Kosovo commented to EUobserver.

The publication has already corrected the text of the article on its website, but we can conclude that the idea that the Americans are allowing an exchange of territories between Serbs and Albanian separatists appeared among journalists after a comment by the US Secretary of State’s special envoy for the Western Balkans, Matthew Palmer. This comment is full of hints and ambiguities.

“The parties themselves must determine the parameters of the dialogue,” Palmer said. “We will support any way to bring them back to the negotiating table, and find a way to normalize relations, ideally with mutual recognition.” We would like to see mutual recognition of Serbia and Kosovo as a result of this process."

At the same time, Palmer refused to comment on the fact that US approval of the territorial exchange contradicts the position of Germany, which strongly opposes such a decision.

After his colleague Grenell’s tweet caused a certain resonance in the information environment, the American special representative did not comment on the development of events.

The idea that Kosovo could give Serbia its northern, Serb-populated enclaves in exchange for Serbia's predominantly Albanian-populated Presevo Valley was first raised in mid-2018 during negotiations between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo "president" Hashim Thaci.

“US policy is that if both sides can agree among themselves and come to an agreement, we do not rule out territorial adjustments,” said then-former US national security adviser John Bolton.

However, this idea met with stiff resistance from rival Kosovo separatist factions, who began calling their leader Hashim Thaci a traitor.

Germany's official position regarding the exchange is: “Berlin does not want steps that could destabilize the region,” since, allegedly, a territorial exchange could provoke a new revision of borders in Europe.

A number of experts reproach the Germans for deceit, accusing them of wanting to transfer the Kosovo-Serbian conflict to frozen status, so that the next step would not be mutual recognition of the parties, liberalization of communications with Kosovo and the entry of the enclave into the EU, which for Germany is already suffering from Albanian crime, extremely unprofitable.