The Democratic Institute of Kosovo (KDI) held today a press conference where the results of the fifth public opinion poll regarding the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, “Normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, citizens’ perspective” were revealed. On this occasion, Jeta Krasniqi from KDI, has presented the findings of this research according to which 49% of citizens think that Kosovo-Serbia dialogue should not continue without the direct involvement of the US in this process. “There are 45% of respondents from the Serb community who share the position that dialogue should continue without US involvement in this process, as opposed to only 29% of citizens from the Albanian community and 24% from other communities who think the same thing, “she said.

Krasniqi emphasized that based on this survey, over half or 51% of the citizens surveyed do not expect the process of dialogue with Serbia to be concluded in 2018. She said that a similar stand is shared by all citizens regardless of their ethnicity. At the same time reported that about half of the respondents (48%) responded that they did not expect recognition from Serbia at the end of the dialogue process. “Only 1% of Serbian community citizens expect that Serbia will recognize the state of Kosovo at the end of this process, compared to 34% of Albanian citizens and 23% of citizens of other communities,” she added. While, Egzon Osmanaj of KDI, noted that a very high percentage of citizens, respectively 67% of them, think that new agreements with Serbia should be discussed in the Parliament before signing them in Brussels. He announced that “while, 71% of the Albanian community and 56% of other communities share this position, only 20% of the Serb community estimate that the Assembly should play this role”.

He also said that 50% of citizens think that the Brussels dialogue has failed to improve relations between Kosovo and Serbia. He said that this attitude is shared by the largest part of citizens from the Albanian community and other communities. Citizens of the Serb community, respectively, 47% of them do not know the consequences of dialogue in relations between the two states.