Meeting between Lajcak and Vucic ended: Petkovic reveals details and what the president insisted on

Vucic and Lajcak previously met on January 17 in Davos

President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic met today in Belgrade with the European Union's special representative for dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina and other regional issues of the Western Balkans, Miroslav Lajcak.

This is Lajcak's first visit to Belgrade this year, while the last time he was in the capital was in November.

Petkovic on the details of the meeting

Afterwards, Petar Petkovic, the Director of the office for Kosovo and Metohija, addressed the key points of the meeting.

The meeting lasted more than an hour, it was not easy and Vucic underlined the main problems regarding normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina. Vucic stressed the very difficult position of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija and Vucic stated that Pristina should stop its escalating behavior, but he also emphasized the importance of the ZSO which the Serbs have been waiting for to realize for more than 10 years, Petkovic stated.

The Serbs have collected enough signatures to replace the fake mayors, and now it is Albin Kurti's turn to act as agreed. There should be Serbian mayors in four municipalities. What the president insisted on was that Kurti stop the provocations, as well as the decisions related to the abolition of the dinar and thus put an end to the dialogue - noted Petkovic.

He added that peace is the most important thing and that Serbia will fight to save its people and for the normalization process to make sense.

"People should have the right to salaries, pensions, social benefits in order to stay in the homes. That's why we need the ZSO, to improve their individual and collective rights. We are committed to the direction of normalization in the dialogue, but in order to be able to implement it, we need the other side as well.

Instead of going in the direction of deescalation, we see that everything we do has no effect in terms of normalization. Pristina is forcibly trying to destroy the dialogue and question the survival of our people in Kosovo," he added.

Lajcak in Pristina on Tuesday

Lajcak was coming to Belgrade three days before the announced start of the implementation of the regulation of the central bank in Pristina, according to which the euro would be the only means of carrying out cash payment transactions in Kosovo.

EU spokesman Peter Stano said that after today's visit to Belgrade, Lajcak will be in Pristina tomorrow, and that this is part of Lajcak's "constant contact and interaction with partners will help them advance in the dialogue."

Vucic and Lajcak met previously on January 17 in Davos, and the president of Serbia said then that he warned that Pristina was calling into question everything that had been achieved so far in the normalization of relations.

Vucic indicated that Pristina's announcement that it will cancel payment transactions with Serbia is an attempt to cancel the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina and an attempt to expel the Serb people from Kosovo and Metohija, and that he hopes that the international community will not allow it.

Lajcak said in Davos that he had informed Brussels about Pristina's intention to cancel payment transactions with Serbia and expressed confidence that a solution would be found that would not have any negative consequences.

The embassies of Quint countries (Italy, US, France, Germany, US) in Pristina yesterday called on Pristina to suspend the implementation of the central bank regulation "to allow for a sufficiently long transition period" and stated that the regulation raises concerns about the impact, especially on the Serb-majority communities.

(Telegraf.rs)