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Osmani visits the US, expected to meet with senior officials of the US State Department
2025-02-05 10:54:50 / KOSOVA
Kosovo's President, Vjosa Osmani, is expected to meet today with a senior official of the US Department of State (DASH) in the United States.
The State Department announced that Osmani will meet with Louis L. Bono, the senior official in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.
The Kosovo Presidency has not announced any such meeting.
Bono took office on January 20, after US President Donald Trump officially began his second term in the White House, and Osmani will be the first Kosovar leader to meet with a Trump administration official.
Bono is a member of the Senior Foreign Service and most recently served as Senior Advisor for Negotiations in the Caucasus.
He has also worked at the US Embassy in Berlin, and has been deputy permanent representative at the United Nations Office in Vienna and at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Osmani, who had congratulated Trump after winning the elections in November, in her annual speech to the Kosovo Assembly at the end of last year called on MPs to maintain relations with allied countries, saying that harming relations with these countries harms Kosovo itself.
She said at the time that Kosovo's alliance with other countries is "bigger and more important than any of us as politicians."
Osmani made those calls at a time when the Kosovo government was being criticized by the international community, including the United States, for "unilateral and uncoordinated" actions in the Serb-majority north, which were related to replacing Serbian license plates with Kosovo ones, removing the Serbian dinar from use, or closing Serbian institutions.
Osman's visit to the State Department follows statements two days ago by the US envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, that the United States needs reliable partners in the Balkans, while the government of Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, according to him, is not one of them.
Grenell – former US ambassador to Berlin – made these criticisms on the social network X, less than a week before the parliamentary elections in Kosovo are held on February 9.
Radio Free Europe contacted Prime Minister Kurti's cabinet regarding these comments, but did not receive a response.
Kurti has justified those actions as steps towards extending the rule of law to the north and has said that they are in accordance with the Constitution and laws of Kosovo.
James O'Brien, who served as Assistant Secretary of State in the administration of Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, said that Kurti, with such actions, has called into question the partnership with the United States.
Even after this statement, Kurti insisted that the US remains Kosovo's most important partner./REL
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