Belgrade        09/23/2020

PUBLIC STATEMENT

Clarification of dilemmas
pertaining to the legal nature of the Washington Agreement

Forum for Security and Democracy welcomes the opening of America’s International Development and Finance Corporation’s (DFC’s) offices in Belgrade and views this as a strong political sign that the United States will play an active role not only in the implementation of the agreement that was signed by Belgrade and Pristina in Washington earlier this month, but in the overall Euro-Atlantic integrations in the region as well.

Also, it is FSD’s opinion that this visit of the American delegation to Pristina and Belgrade has to at this point definitely disperse any doubts as to the legal nature of the agreement achieved in Washington, especially those pertaining to whether it is binding or not, seeing as how we are just now witnessing the beginnings of the implementation of an agreement whose true significance for Belgrade and Pristina is yet to be revealed.

Forum for Security and Democracy expects that the involvement of the United States in the implementation of the agreement reached in Washington will have a positive impact on the continuation of Serbia’s Euro-Atlantic integrations. Claims that that process might cause rifts between the EU and the United States are either made in bad faith or are simply astonishingly ignorant when it comes to not only said political processes but also the nature of the political order that was established in the West after WW2.

Last but not least, FSD wishes to point out that the events we are witnessing in this process of normalization between Belgrade and Pristina are checkpoints on an irreversible course of both parties towards the EU, and that the opponents of the Washington Agreement are fully aware of this. Even though at this time it is not politically convenient for these actors to underscore this fact as their main issue with the Agreement, this does not rule out that such opposition, including its more drastic forms, in the near future.