Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue at the Crossroads: A Conversation with Avdullah Hoti

On 24 September, a stunning, fatal confrontation took place in Banjska, Kosovo between heavily armed Serb assailants and Kosovo police. The White House expressed alarm as Serbian forces later moved towards the border with Kosovo.

To illuminate the tenuous situation – and how the parties got here – the Foreign Policy Institute hosted Kosovo former Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti to speak to SAIS. In conversation with FPI Senior Fellow Edward P. Joseph, Dr. Hoti reflected on the dozen years of EU-led Dialogue, and shared his vision for achieving a final settlement between Serbia and Kosovo through mutual recognition.

Biographies

Avdullah Hoti is a Professor of Economics at the University of Prishtina. He teaches macroeconomics, labor and migration economics. He has served as member of several professional and academic councils at home and abroad and has published a number of research papers on labor, migration, and human capital.

Professor Hoti has had a long political career. Since 2006, he has served in various government positions at local and central level in Kosovo, including the Deputy Mayor of the Capital City, Minister of Finance, First Deputy Prime Minister, and Prime Minister. He has been elected member of Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo in each election since 2014. He now serves as Member of Parliament from the Democratic League of Kosovo, a center right party that is member of the European People's Party, which is the largest political group in the European Parliament. He is married and has two sons, Ledion and Antian.

MP Dritan Selmanaj has held important positions in: government, as Deputy Prime Minister; and in Parliament: as Chairman of the Committee for Oversight of Public Finances, and the Committee on Legislation and Rules of Procedure. He also oversaw the Anti-Corruption Agency.

Edward P. Joseph is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute and Adjunct Lecturer at SAIS, specializing in Conflict Management. During the wars in former Yugoslavia, Edward served on the ground in each conflict-afflicted country: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and then-Macedonia.

In May, 2012, as the US-nominated, Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Edward negotiated a breakthrough agreement between Belgrade and Pristina to hold Serbian national elections in Kosovo, averting a crisis and creating a novel precedent that lasted a decade.