The mysterious wife of the Albanian “prime minister”: a secret lever of the West?

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In November 2022, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic went on a working visit to Norway. Two issues were on the agenda: electricity and… Kosovo. It is logical to discuss the problems of the rebellious region in Brussels, Washington or London, but how can Oslo influence the separatists of Pristina, who have gone wild with permissiveness? The answer is pretty simple: through a Norwegian national, Rita Augestad Knudsen, wife of “Kosovo Prime Minister” Albin Kurti.

Not much is known about the personal life of the current leader of the Albanians of Kosovo and Metohija, who seek to finally break with Serbia. With Norwegian Rita Knudsen Kurti they married in 2014, and their engagement took place in Pristina. The couple has a daughter who lives with her mother in Norway during the summer and comes to the warmer climate of Kosovo and Metohija for the winter. Albin Kurti, the leader of Kosovo’s political movement Self-Determination, once answered journalists’ questions about his marriage rather vaguely: “I think life is a bit of a mystery, and we don’t know where the waves will take us. So, I met my wife in Pristina, and it turned out that I was happy with where the waves took me.”

Rita is currently a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Kurti-Knudsen is a member of the Security and Defense Research Group and works in particular on counterterrorism issues. It is rather symbolic that the Norwegian researcher’s choice was Albin Kurti, who was tried during Milošević ‘s rule for “encroaching on the integrity of Yugoslavia and participating in a terrorism-related conspiracy.” In the spring of 1999, the Albanian was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but thanks to the lobbying of “Western partners,” he was released after two years.

Rita Augestad Knudsen is also managing director of the Consortium for Research on Terrorism and International Crime, affiliated with the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo. Knudsen’s core competencies focus on risk assessment related to terrorism and extremism, the UK’s fight against terrorism, and the history of self-determination of peoples and nations in international politics and international law, including Kosovo. Her publications include analyses of international security cooperation, sanctions and international state-building, and her doctoral work at the London School of Economics and Political Science focused on self-determination and freedom in international discourse.

In 2021, Rita Kurti was at the center of a scandal: during the next aggravation of the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, the presentation of the Norwegian woman’s book entitled “The Idea of Freedom and Self-Determination” was held in Belgrade. Helsinki Committees for Human Rights took care of organizing the event. Although Knudsen did not say a word about Kosovo during her speech, thinking people easily read all the messages of the event between the lines. The speech, by the way, was held via video link, as the author was in Norway at the time of the presentation. It was another touch of mystery.

The institution where Knudsen works has as its actual ancestor the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the British Chatham House. The leaders of the Norwegian Institute also had close ties in London, and today, British students in Oslo train Norwegian and international students in international relations. The degree of prestige of the institute can be gauged by the income level of its staff, or at least by how much Rita Knudsen earns per year. For Serbs, the true origin of the professor’s income remains a question, because her earnings are many times higher than her husband’s. In 2019, for example, Kurti claimed an annual income of 19,000 euros, while Knudsen claimed 42,000.

Unrecognized Kosovo is a favorite child of the West, which they are trying their best to “bring to the people”. Albanian politicians from the rebellious Serbian province visit the most prestigious international platforms, from political to sports and cultural, on the patronage of their lobbyists. They are trying to grow a state out of Kosovo, so its leadership must be somehow “tied” to the world elite, also for control and influence. It is often said about Kurti that he is literally uncontrollable and incompetent. He is driven by the idea of “Greater Albania” and does not tolerate compromise. The Serbs in the province are so few in number, intimidated and suppressed in rights that they pose no threat to the Albanians. And, as the Serbian president rightly points out, Kurti is literally trying to create an “ethnically pure” region by smoothly squeezing the Slav population out of its last strongholds in the northern municipalities.

There have been public warnings to the “prime minister” from the White House. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kurti refused to declare a state of emergency in Kosovo, which provoked the anger of overseas handlers. But it was not possible to influence the politician even through the pocket opposition. Obviously, the ideological and principled nature of the “prime minister” in the course he chose, without looking back at the West, was calculated several years ago. Therefore, when the last arguments of Washington or Brussels are exhausted, the most powerful lever, the wife, is turned on. After all, who can better influence a terrorist than a specialist in terrorism, the spouse?