Outgoing US Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Gabriel Escobar said Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Belgrade was timed to increase tensions between Serbia and the rest of the Western community.

Asked to comment on Xi’s visit to the Serbian capital on the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese embassy by NATO, Escobar told an online media briefing that it is “unhealthy” to increase tensions between Serbia and the Western community, and cautioned all partners “to be very aware of China’s agenda in Europe.”

“The United States has said that the bombing of the Chinese embassy in 1999 was an accident. We’ve apologized. I believe we’ve actually even paid reparations to the families. I do believe that the timing of the visit was unfortunate but deliberate,” said Escobar.

US Special Representative to the Western Balkans Escobar also said that reconciliation, rule of law, and good peaceful relations with all neighbors are important for Serbia’s integration in the transatlantic community.

“We have been very clear that Serbia is welcome in the transatlantic family, but there are clear conditions for that. And we’ll continue to be very public and encourage privately as well that reconciliation, rule of law, and good peaceful relations with all neighbors is an important part of it,” said Escobar.

Commenting on relations between Serbia and Moscow, the US official said “it would be a mistake to look at Russia as the cause of the problems in the Balkans.”

“Russia takes advantage of the problems in the Balkans, but the problems are those that have existed for the last 25 years. And by resolving the problems, I think we close off the opportunities for Russia to make mischief in the region,” he said.

Escobar voiced disagreement with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s position that the establishment of the Community/Association of Serb-majority Municipalities (CSM) in Kosovo and Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe (CoE) are two separate processes.

I think they’re very related, the Council of Europe is about the treatment of minorities, and Kosovo has made clear commitments about the treatment of minorities, and that includes the CSM, he said, adding: “I would encourage Kosovo to work closely with its European and American partners to find a way to move forward on an existing legal obligation that will have to be done anyway.”

Regarding the agreement between Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic reached last year in Ohrid on the implementation of the Agreement on the Path to Normalization of Relations, Escobar said that all the agreed elements were immediately implementable but that both sides have failed to honor that commitment – Kosovo has not begun forming the Community/Association of Serb-majority Municipalities and Serbia has not stopped blocking the path for Kosovo in any Euro-Atlantic and international organization.

The US official said the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue must continue because without this process there wouldn’t be a crisis management mechanism and both sides’ European path would be stopped.

The normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo remains a priority for the State Department, said Escobar.

He said he was departing his job this month because he has reached the end of his tenure, rebutted the media allegations that he was being fired for shady links to the Serbian Government, and said this report came out shortly after he communicated to the Government of Kosovo.

“Everything in that report is a lie, and verifiably a lie. First of all, I’m not being fired, and everyone at the State Department has verified that. Second, my wife doesn’t receive any money from any foreign government. My wife in every embassy that we have served in – Bolivia, Portugal, Italy, and even Serbia – has been a proud proponent of people-to-people contacts, but she does that without any kind of payment and without any kind of contract… This report came out shortly after I communicated to the Government of Kosovo. So it is this kind of disinformation that is unfortunate that is being propagated in the Western Balkans, and also – I might add – one of the reasons why the media context in Kosovo has been so criticized by independent journalists and independent organizations,” said Escobar.

He said he reached the end of his two-year tenure last year, but requested to stay on for an extra year because he believed at the time that by the end of this year more progress would have been made on the Ohrid agreement, that Serbia would have implemented some requirements and Kosovo formed the CSM.

Escobar said he hopes Western Balkans countries will continue their path to the European Union (EU), noting that Albania, North Macedonia, and Montenegro are “fully engaged” on the whole process of joining the EU.