Week in Review: No End In Sight

Holding Out

General view of the CHP's headquarters with poster of the Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu (cente), leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), in Ankara, Turkey, 28 May 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/SEDAT SUNA

Turkey's opposition parties are still licking their wounds after defeat in May's presidential and parliamentary elections. As part of this, there are growing calls for Kemal Kilicdaroglu - the opposition presidential candidate - to resign as leader of the CHP and make way for a new leader.

Yet Kilicdaroglu is digging in. Opposition supporters fear that, unless he goes, the opposition will fare poorly in local elections some nine months away. Who will prevail?

Read more: Calls Grow for Change in Turkey's Main Opposition Party (June 23, 2023)

No End In Sight

Aleksandar Arsenijevic. Photo: BIRN

After another meeting in Brussels, which Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attended but did not meet directly, not much seems to have been resolved. According to EU mediators, all sides understand in which direction things need to head, but there is lack of agreement on how to get there.

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground remains tense. Balkan Insight talks to Aleksandar Arsenijevic, a young Kosovo Serb politician from the north, whom the latest crisis has thrown into the public limelight. Among other things, he warns that the ongoing ban on Serbian goods entering Kosovo risks a humanitarian crisis in the north.

Read more: Slowing Goods from Serbia 'Risks Humanitarian Crisis in Kosovo' Serb Politician warns (June 27, 2023)

Dangerous Precedent?

The leader of Shor Politic Party, fugitive and...