Only hours after he said he would not revoke the decision on the 100 per cent import taxes on goods from Serbia and Bosnia, as reported by Pristina media, Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s Prime Minister said a duties on raw material would be lifted on March 15 and all of them on April 1 if Belgrade ceased its anti-recognition campaign, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reported later on Thursday.
Kurti told a special news conference that if “Serbia behaves like that, as of April 1 Kosovo will start with the gradual implementation of reciprocity in trade, while the taxes would be back in place on June 15 if Belgrade ignored “the goodwill by Pristina.
Earlier on Thursday, Kurti refused the US demand to lift taxes.
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Announcing the decision, he said he hoped that the European Union would appreciate the move and offer free visa regime to Kosovo before the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Zagreb on May 7.
Kurti called on Serbia to “react to this decision by stopping with the campaign for the withdrawal of recognition of Kosovo’s independence and to start eliminating trade barriers.”
He added that “in case that Serbia doesn’t react during the 90 days since the first decision on annulling the taxes, Kosovo’s Government would reinforce them on June 15.”
Kosovo introduced the tariffs in November 2018, as a reaction for failing to join Interpol, blaming Serbia’s campaign for that.
Belgrade responded by conditioning the resumption of the dialogue on the normalisation of relations with Pristina with the lifting of taxes and started its campaign among countries to revoke their decision of recognising Kosovo’s independence.
(Naslovi.net, Beta, 27.02.2020)
https://naslovi.net/2020-02-27/beta/kurti-od-15-marta-pocinje-postepeno-ukidanje-takse/24989265
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