Senate defense bill includes Kosovo in US military training eligibility list amid heightened tensions in the Balkans.
The National Defense Authorization Fiscal Act of 2024, for which the Senate is planned to start debate this week, permits Kosovo to take part in US-led military exercises to increase interaction with NATO forces.
Doing so would permit Kosovo to get repayments for training through multilateral military activities with individuals from NATO and NATO’s Partnership for Peace, a list of countries that includes its rival Serbia.
“The Committee appreciates the efforts of the Department of Defense to support the Republic of Kosovo as it works to develop and improve its national security forces, particularly efforts to increase professionalization, increase interoperability, and strengthen Kosovo’s ability to respond to threats external and hybrid,” says a commission report
RTKlive reports, citing the report, that the report also states that the Senate Armed Services Committee “supports expanding cybersecurity cooperation” with the armed forces of Kosovo and directs Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to brief Congress on efforts to do so by the end of the year.
“The committee believes that the Department of Defense should identify areas to advance existing cybersecurity cooperation as well as new opportunities to strengthen the bilateral partnership,” the report said.
The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the bill in June.
Endeavors to extend US-Kosovo military ties come as the Biden administration and numerous lawmakers seek to smooth Kosovo’s deteriorating relations with Serbia amid rising tensions between the Albanian and Serbian communities within Kosovo.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a conference on the issue on July 18, in spite of the fact that legislators have been to some degree separated on the strain to apply on Kosovo, versus Serbia, in the question.
“The Government of Kosovo must commit to the implementation of an ‘Association of Municipalities with a Serbian Majority’ as it pledged to do 10 years ago,” said the chairman of the subcommittee for Europe, Thomas Kean, at the hearing.
He stated, “However, the United States must ensure that [the association] protects the rights of Kosovo Serbs without undermining Kosovo’s authority over its sovereign territory.”
The United States of America and the European Union have asked Kosovo to hold new municipal elections. Deputy Secretary of State for Eurasian Affairs Gabriel Escobar said that if this isn’t done, it could hurt Kosovo’s hopes of joining NATO and the EU.
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“Our only request was that Kosovo not try to install mayors by force where protests were happening,” Escobar told the Foreign Affairs Commission on Tuesday.
Escobar noted that the US has “received a commitment” from Serbia not to oppose new elections “and there are consequences for Serbia if they oppose that.”
