VLEN pulls out a 2021 statement against DUI over the „Serbian world“: but what it shows is a list of topics, not a signed deal

VLEN has come out with a document and means to close the subject with it. It is the official statement of Serbia's Presidency following the 2021 meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and the then foreign minister Bujar Osmani.

In that statement, VLEN claims, it is written that among the topics of conversation was also „improving the position of Serbs in North Macedonia“.

The coalition's point is blunt: DUI has spent days accusing them of being part of the „Serbian world“ narrative, while DUI's own foreign minister sat at a table where exactly that was discussed.

A statement, or a document?

Here it pays to be precise. VLEN calls it an „official document“. What they are showing is a press release from the Serbian Presidency - a protocol note listing which topics were touched on at a meeting.

It is not a memorandum, not a signed agreement, not an obligation. It is a list of topics. And in diplomacy, „the position of Serbs was discussed“ is a sentence that appears in almost every Serbian statement after a meeting with any country in the region.

That something was mentioned at a meeting and that someone agreed to it - those are two different things. VLEN is using the first to imply the second.

The second punch lands harder than the first

But in the same statement VLEN also dropped a line with a deeper sting: „This document reveals one more truth: during its years in power, DUI never had the Albanian question as its priority.“

That is no longer an argument about the Serbian world. That is an argument about who actually represented Albanians in Macedonia through all those years in power - and that is a far more painful subject than any meeting in Belgrade.

VLEN adds: „This is proof that demolishes DUI's entire political theatre. Those who today speak loudest about the ‘Serbian world’ were yesterday sitting at tables where topics were discussed that, in our view, had nothing to do with the priorities of Albanians.“

And then the line built for a poster: „Documents do not lie. VLEN does not deal in propaganda, it speaks with facts.“

What is missing

DUI has so far offered no response to these claims.

So what is actually on the table? One side accuses the other of being part of the „Serbian world“. The other pulls out a five-year-old press release to show that the first sat at the same tables. Both call the opponent's accusations propaganda.

Neither explains what was concretely agreed at that 2021 meeting, or what came out of it. Because that is not the point. The point is who pulls out the document first.

And the document, read to the end, shows only that the Serbian president in 2021 wanted to talk about Serbs in Macedonia. That is not a revelation - that is his job. The question neither party is asking is a different one: what did the minister say back?