To the small surprise of the Serbian public, the Americans very quickly started to realize their part of the obligations from the agreements signed in Washington.
The ink has not yet dried on the papers made on September 4, and two weeks later, their delegation consisting of representatives of the International Development Finance Corporation DFC, the US Secretariat for Energy and Trade and the US President’s Special Envoy for Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue, Richard Grenell, visited Kosovo and Serbia.
It is known to the public that the topics were Lake Gazivode and energy, as well as the procedures for establishing a DFC representative office in Belgrade, but it is not known what was specifically discussed.
“One joint statement, one virtual open office, one presidential order and many gifts. This is the balance of the visit of the delegation led by the American diplomat Richard Grenell to Serbia and Kosovo, with the goal of confirming the commitment to the agreement signed by the two sides in Washington,” BBC News wrote in Serbian, summarizing the results of those meetings two days later.
A similar situation, with perhaps a little more detail, happened last week when the American delegation visited the region for the second time.
It also included two experts, energy and water engineers, both from the National Laboratory of the Northwest Pacific near Seattle, whose task is to make a feasibility study so that both Serbs and Albanians can use Gazivode Lake equally.
If Pristina and Belgrade could agree on some kind of joint sovereignty over the reservoir, it could be a good economic basis for the upcoming negotiations between the two sides.
Let us remind you, the lake is mostly located in Kosovo, its waters are cooled by the turbines of the Obilic power plant, they regulate the electricity supply in that territory, as well as the water supply in the north of the province.
But the reservoir is being filled from watercourses on the Serbian side, and if that source were to be shut down, Kosovo would have electricity only for key institutions, such as hospitals.
The Serbian side is also supported by the fact that the accumulation was built from a World Bank loan repaid by our state.
Another topic on the table, it seems much more important for the Americans, was the diversification of energy sources, simply put, they were looking for models that would reduce Serbia’s dependence on gas imports from Russia.
This is part of their strategic goals, to reduce Europe’s overall dependence on Russian gas, because that would reduce Russia’s political influence on the Old Continent, and above all in the Balkan region, where it is the largest.
The US Embassy in Belgrade assessed for Danas that the visit of the American delegation was extremely productive.
– As you know, this interagency delegation led by the US Department of Energy once again showed the commitment of the US government to the normalization of economic relations between Kosovo and Serbia. With this visit, we will start through talks at the technical level, which should continue in the coming months. The delegation included energy policy engineers and experts to help the governments of Kosovo and Serbia take steps to implement certain elements of the Washington agreements reached on September 4 under the auspices of the White House, especially those parts of the agreement related to diversification of supply sources – states the Embassy and adds that the members of the delegation met with the representatives of the line ministries of Serbia and Kosovo, representatives of the electricity, water management and business community, but it is not specified with which representatives the talks were held and what was on the agenda, Danas reports.
