welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur, and today i'm in pristine, capital of kosovo, which declared itself independent some 15 years ago. but which is still not recognised by, and is locked in a potentially dangerous confrontation with, neighbouring serbia. now kosovo�*s key allies in washington and brussels are telling my guest today, kosovo�*s prime minister, albin kurti, to cool it. and quickly. will he listen? and if he doesn't, could kosovo see a new round of balkan bloodshed? prime minister albin kurti, welcome to hardtalk.

welcome to pristina and thank you for having me. well, it's a great pleasure to be in your office. prime minister, how close has kosovo come to seeing a renewal of conflict in the last few months? it has been very heavy because the two extremist terrorist organisations, which are being financed by serbia, and from where they also receive their orders, civil protection and the northern brigade have been very active and first intimidating serbs and serbian candidates who would like to vote and run in elections. and second, in attacking our police, journalists, but first and foremost, nato soldiers on 29 may. you've chosen in that answer to pile all of the blame on your serbian

minority population. that is not the way the international community sees things right now. i never blame serbian minority population. they are 4% of population in kosovo, less than half of them live north of the river ibar, but i was blaming two specific organisations and also belgrade, who is also controlling them, for the violent riots, for the violent unrest that we had in recent months. the eu envoy responsible for trying to normalise the situation here in kosovo, he had a discussion with you just a couple of days ago. he described that discussion is long, frank and open and he stressed to you, to you, the urgent need for de—escalation. are you prepared to take actions to de—escalate the tension?

of course, and i have offered to have early elections in the four northern municipalities as soon as possible, and to that end, we have to have rule of law in place, so we have a fair and open campaign, prior to free and democratic elections. the united states and your european allies, certainly the united kingdom, asked you not to do that. you didn't seek their advice. you just did it. why? on 23rd ofjune, minister for internal affairs, xhelal svecla, together with our director of police, gazmend hoxha, they made a press conference where they have exposed all the ammunition and armaments, including rocket launchers, they have confiscated, in a car with belgrade car plates belonging to this northern brigade, but which actually was also belonging to the serbia railways, a publicly owned

enterprise in serbia. at that press conference the minister of internal affairs announced that he's going to ask from the government to declare this organisation a terrorist organisation. if i would not have done so i would violate my law, and i would have to neglect the data from our security sector and intelligence agency. i asked you specifically about your cooperation and co—ordination with united states and european allies. the us state department criticised your move to label these groups as terror organisations. it said "the decision should have been co—ordinated with the closest "international partners of kosovo, including those with prime responsibility to ensure stability in kosovo." "we", said the us state department, "again call on kosovo to refrain from unilateral moves." why are you ignoring your friends in the united states? we regularly communicate and co—ordinate with both the eu

and us but then i have to respect and to apply constitutionality and legal order and lawfulness of republic of kosovo. i am prime minister of kosovo because kosovo is a republic. five days before making this decision with which we declare these two organisations terrorist organisations, they were notified about what we are going to do. so we do co—ordinate, that does not mean we agree all the time on all issues. the serbs say you are operating paramilitary police forces in those ethnic serb towns, at least four of them in the north of your country. they say they have clear evidence and i'm quoting now from the serbian press, "beating and torturing "of ethnic serbians in their home communities." they name an individual man who has been pictured with his head in a bag, barechested, he has been beaten,

these are pictures the serbians say were circulated within the kosovo police force, bragging about the abuse of ethnic serbs. what are you doing about that? out of a dozen of these violent extremists, which have been arrested, there has been one case of misconduct of a policeman, who has been immediately suspended but otherwise on all other allegations, my minister ofjustice and minister of internal affairs have sent letters to mr borrell... the eu foreign minister. that whatever we did was fully in compliance with procedures and law of kosovo and he has been convinced of this. see, you say the situation right now in the north of your country

is, to use your word at the beginning of this interview, "very heavy". the serb side, lead of course by president aleksandar vukic says and i'm quoting him, "we are at a crossroads, whether we will have peace or not, and there is only one man in the balkans who wants to incite conflict, that is albin kurti." well, he attacks me every day, sometimes several times a day, but kosovo is a democratic country pro—western orientated. according to transparency international, to freedom house, world justice project, videm, electoral democracy. according to reporters without borders, kosovo is a democratic country, whereas serbia is a hybrid regime or other. we are pro—eu, pro— nato and pro—us. serbia is very much aligned with the kremlin. i am telling you... he is saying this, but that's simply false allegations against me. my point throughout this interview

so far has been the eu, the us and your closest friends are telling you that you need to take actions to de—escalate the situation. and the one thing more than any other that they want you to do, is to deliver on the promise that kosovo made in an agreement with serbia brokered by the eu, some ten years ago in 2013, a promise to allow the ethnic serbian population in your country to create this association of serbian municipalities, which could represent their interests, in this country. your country made the promise ten years ago, you refused to deliver on it? why? belgrade wanted this association out of their policy for territorial ethno—nationalism which resulted in the republic of bosnia—herzegovina. it is true my predecessor ten years

ago signed such an agreement. prime minister taci, yes, made a solemn promise deliver it. then this agreement was elaborated further by another prime minister, my predecessor as well, in 2015 but this agreement failed the test of constitutional court. constitutional court decision said in 23 articles of our constitution, basically have been violated by this association of municipalities. they are a tiny minority, why are you so frightened of them? you compare it to the situation in bosnia with republika srpska but there the serbs represent 37% of the population of bosnia, here they represent 4 or 5%, why are you so scared? we are not scared. we're just vigilant because belgrade is using them to not recognise kosovo, and to seek division,

partition of kosovo. if it would not have been for belgrade, of course 4% of population would never represent any kind of risk. again it is not serbian community which is endangering our republic, all these parallel illegal structures getting millions and millions of euros annually from belgrade in order to sabotage our independence. are you right now prepared to talk to president vucic of serbia about all of this or not? of course, i was in brussels on 22nd ofjune, but it was president vucic who did not want to have a meeting. i think my constructiveness and my creativity has been shown throughout with different proposals. i proposed the model which is inspired by serbs in croatian, croation model. serbia and croatia have a normalisation agreement with a mechanism for protection of minority rights.

and serbians are happy with that, i said let's do it also in kosovo. but they do not want to hear. croatia in 2013, they signed a document making a explicit promise you are not prepared to keep. does it worry you, that your best friends, your most important friends in the international community, starting with the european union, think you have got this wrong. and indeed they are so sure that you have got it wrong, and that you need to change your mind, they have imposed sanctions on kosovo, right now. these sanctions have nothing to do with the 2013 agreement because that agreement is part of 39 agreements signed by my predecessors and which should be implemented, if valid and binding, according to article ten of basic treaty which i made with the president vucic in brussels and then implementation. what you are referring

to an agreement ten years ago, that is one out of 39 agreements, which is part of article 10 of the newest agreement which i made with president vucic. you cannot put the cart before the horse now by picking and choosing this single agreement. so why do you...? prime minister, you say it's not all about the agreement signed in 2013. you tell me then, why are the member states of the eu, your friends, why are they imposing very serious sanctions on you right now? it has to do with the situation in the north where, simply, on one hand, they don't want to put proper names to specific events and things. for example, three of our policeman have been abducted a month ago, in territory of kosovo by serbian special military and police unit. that is in dispute. the serbs say they picked them up inside serbian territory. that is not true.

i have offered tons of evidence. all my international partners and friends know it has happened in leposavic. in my view, what they are trying to do is by being soft with serbia, to try to move it out from the influence of kremlin. and i think this policy... of russia? of course. you think this is all about russia? i think it has a lot to do with belgrade pushing in the direction of brussels and washington, when actually belgrade are so much linked with kremlin, historically, culturally, but also in terms of military and energy. so, to get this straight, you are accusing the eu of betraying their strong relationship with you because they're trying to persuade president vucic and the serbs to move away from putin and russia? is that it? i have no other explanation why they are tolerating so much

a minister of propaganda from the time of milosevic who does not put sanctions to russian federation, almost a year and a half since the invasion of ukraine started, i have no other explanation. we as human beings are in search of meaning, i do not know how to explain to myself and to others how soft they are with belgrade. maybe you need to look at the diplomatic big picture. i have read reports, and you would have as well, that significant amounts of serbian ammunition for example, manufactured in serbia are going through third parties into ukraine, being used by ukrainian forces. that matters to the united states and europe and perhaps you have to accept that right now the diplomatic weather is changing, and you are going to have to adapt to that as well. if an autocrat is friends with vladimir putin, for changing that, a democratic country like kosovo should not pay. the autocrat should pay towards...

do you feel you and your interests are being sacrificed because the west is so concerned about the war in ukraine? i think they are so concerned about the possibility of spillover in the balkans — and that is real because of the link of belgrade with moscow. but also they know that serbian ruler in belgrade is not a democrat and he has a lot of power. and they never faced the past — the crimes they committed in the past — they consider their neighbours temporary states. for example, bosnia—hergozovina in belgrade it is dejure recognised, but de facto not.

there's a lot of influence of belgrade in montenegro. so this kind of regional hegemonic power in direct link with moscow is causing a lot of fear in the west, and for which i believe republic of kosovo should not pay. but, yes, but, but, but... just let me please let me explain this. towards a democrat, i am a social democrat. towards an autocrat, i must be a sovereignist, too. what we're doing in the north is rule of law, as sovereignty, and sovereignty as rule of law. you are paying a price — that's the fact, because eu sanctions imposed in the last few weeks, according to your own alliance of kosovar businesses, are going to cost your country up to 500 million euros by the end of this year. you're losing access to infrastructure grants, to other investments from brussels. you can't — with your weak economy, you can't afford to lose this financial and economic support. so what are you going to do? we have had 7.35% of gdp as economic growth averaged in these two years since i'm in power. exports doubled in two years, fdis doubled in two years, tax revenues increased by two thirds, and it's such a shame now to put these sanctions on kosovo.

your own business community says, "albin kurti must come to his senses when it comes to re—establishing good relations with the eu and us". i'm doing my best, but i cannot surrender a democratic republic to this fascist militia in the north. bill clinton, just the other day, made a speech in tirana, where he said "it is time for the albanians" — and he meant the albanians in kosovo, because he was talking about the kosovo crisis, who are now in the majority — "they must stop this foolishness" he said. "what major political issue can possibly be advanced by arguing for how little towns are run?" clinton says stop the foolishness. are you prepared to? well, i'm not being fool but i am neither being fooled. so i'm prime minister of a democratic republic. rule of law, the most democratic

country has the most professional police, and we're very thankful for contribution of president clinton, who actually in tirana said the serbs shouldn't have boycotted the elections, they should have voted. and this is the root cause — the lack of participation in democratic process. low turnout, hollow legitimacy, i recognise early elections. this much i can do. and article 72 of local self—government law on local self—government says that with 20% of electoral body in a municipality, they can start the process to trigger early elections. let's do that — i'm going to help. so you cannot from the streets with militia get into mayor's office. only through democratic processes. but you know that the serbs aren't going to go back into the municipal offices. they're not going to agree to participate in new elections unless you make a promise to give them this autonomous association of serb communities. if you won't give them that, even if you have new elections in those communities, the serbs won't take part — so you aren't really achieving anything.

do you have a solution which might solve this problem? i have offered, again, a model which serbia already accepted with croatia. croatia is a success story of eu and nato membership. with respect, the serbs in your country are not interested in what happened in croatia. what they want is the delivery on a promise made to them in 2013. in these 15 years since we declared independence, average annual budget allocated per municipality, per capita, is 62% higherfor serb majority municipality than for the rest. we have been privileging them all of the time. the problem is not to satisfy serbs. the problem is that i cannot satisfy belgrade for the losses caused to serbia's estate by a genocidal regime of milosevic. this is the problem. the problem is in belgrade, not among serbian community. people are generally good and peaceful. i believe in people.

but you have autocrats that destroy the goodness. prime minister, it's notjust about your foreign partners who are worried and frustrated with you right now — also, many people here in kosovo are worried. one of the leaders of the opposition democratic party, memli krasniqi, he said "you", you, mr kurti, "are playing with fire." and many kosovans are aware of your track record. you are a hotheaded politician. in different parts of your career, you've spent time in prison for political protest, you released teargas inside the kosovan parliament back in 2015 — you even injured yourself, i think — in 2018, you were found guilty of the illegal use of weapons and obstructing officials doing their duties. you're known as an impulsive, hotheaded, nationalist politician. you may push this too far. over a glass of wine,

the two of us can discuss long about my political activism and my experience in the past as opposition leader and so on and so forth, but this is not about me, and i am not alone. vast majority of people of kosovo think that we should not give up on the rule of law. i am prime minister also of serbs. i have a serbian minister, nenad rasic. three municipalities in the north have serbian deputy mayors — dragana miletiq in leposaviq, katarina adjancic in north mitrovica, and sladjana pantovic in zvecan. i collaborate with serbs. but serbs who vucic is paying to sabotage state of kosovo are a very peculiar kind. these are the privileged minority within the serbian minority. i'm not going to give up to them. the problem is, and i'm looking at that document there, the original document — declaration of independence of kosovo in 2008. since then, what really has kosovo achieved?

you haven't normalised relations with serbia, you have the recognition of more than 100 countries, but significant countries like russia and china — even five members of the european union — still do not recognise kosovo. your economy is in a terrible mess, hundreds of thousands of your own people have left kosovo to find work in the european union. can you honestly say, some — what — 15 years after that document was signed that you are delivering? yes. we are a success story of nato intervention to stop the genocide of serbia, and we are a success story of democratic and economic progress working hand—in—hand. all the seven members of the g7 group recognise kosovo. we have 117 recognitions, and we are going to continue. kosovo is here to stay, and i'm here to serve. i understand politics as public service to the people. and i'm democratically elected, two years ago,

with a landslide victory — the biggest transformation of government in kosovo since we declared independence. and i'm with full optimism that we are going to succeed. this is making nervous both belgrade and moscow, and that's why their nervousness is turning into violence in the northern part of my country. but we will prevail this time, as well. a a final, very brief thought — can you guarantee to me that there will not be renewal of conflict, of war, in the balkans, over kosovo? you have my guarantee that government of kosovo, by no means, will contribute to escalation, will do everything for de—escalation. i offer to side the basic treaty for normalisation — belgrade refused. so you have my goodwill, good faith, and good intentions.

and i am the guarantee that both eu and us as values and strategic interests will be nurtured and prevail in my country. prime minister kurti, it has been a pleasure to talk to you. thank you very much indeed. thank you very much. hello. it's looking distinctly unsettled for the rest of the week. it's already been pretty wet, as you can see from this weather watcher picture during the day on monday, courtesy of low pressure. still with us on tuesday, pulling away to the north so we change our wind direction and things freshen up. maybe a brief window of dry weather thursday. not for long, though. the next area of low pressure is pushing back in for the end of the week. so if i show you the rainfall

accumulation chart through the rest of the week you can see how the rainfall amounts are piling up pretty much anywhere, seeing a good 30—110 millimetres potentially in the showers. perhaps driest in the south and the east, but even here, we will see some rain at times. so that's a whole week's worth of rain, as i say, some places will be wetter than others because we're talking about showers. and it was quite windy on monday as well. and that wind still with us on tuesday ahead of this weather system, the muggy air, some really quite heavy and thundery rain through monday night into tuesday before it clears away. and then that area of low pressure driving yet more showers across our shores. now the wind direction slightly changed to west or north westerly. so a fresher feeling day for many, particularly england and wales. but some of those showers will be very lively with torrential downpours. and that's really a theme we keep throughout the week. so they may well fade away a little bit more as we go through tuesday night into wednesday. but again, with that low pressure close by, you can still see them circling into the british isles.

what will happen is that it will freshen up overnight as well. so having monday night being quite uncomfortable, tuesday night should be more comfortable for sleeping. now that low pressure is still with us into wednesday sitting to the north of the uk. so we're going to pull in a northerly or north westerly wind. so we'll notice that drop in humidity again. but there'll still be plenty of showers around, that strong july sunshine allowing those shower clouds to build and become quite big. so, again, we'll see some torrential downpours, some slow moving where the winds are lighter. again, fairly typical temperatures for the time of year as we'll see on tuesday. now, as we go through wednesday night into thursday, we just start and see this little ridge of high pressure nose into southern areas in particular. so perhaps fewer showers and the showers that do come along a little less heavy, but actually not further north. it looks as if scotland might continue to see some really intense downpours with some hail and some thunder. the temperatures perhaps nudging a degree or so up on those of tuesday, wednesday in the south,

given some dry weather and a bit more sunshine. but again, that may well last into friday in southern and eastern areas, but we've got our next area of low pressure winding up to the west as we go into friday. so it looks pretty wet at the moment across northern ireland, scotland, western fringes of england and wales. but the devil, at this stage, is in the detail. so we're going to be firming up, of course, as we go through the week. but you get the picture again, the wind strengthened around that area of low pressure. it will be quite windy at times. and then what happens after that, as i say, is around about where this area of low pressure comes to sit, pushing its heavier spells of rain, potentially some thundery rain, pulling up all that warmth and humidity as well from across western parts of europe. so could result in some really intense rainfall, potentially localised flooding, lots of spray and standing water on the roads this week in those big showers. and, as ever, you can find out more on the warnings on the website. as we head into next week, that low pressure possibly starts to move away to the north and east, allow a nose of high pressure to move in.

but then we've got that low pressure sitting off to the north and the west. as ever, we'll keep you updated.

claims are "rubbish". welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm mariko 0i. singapore, i'm mariko 0i. the headlines.. the parents who made claims that a bbc presenter paid their teenager for explicit photos stand by their allegations — despite a lawyer for the now 20 year old saying the