Lajcak satisfied with talks in Brussels, expects Belgrade-Pristina dialogue to continue

Photo: Tanjug/Dragan Kujundzic

EU Special Representative for Belgrade-Pristina dialogue Miroslav Lajcak wrote on Twitter that he was satisfied with the talks within the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

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Lajcak especially pointed out that he was satisfied with the discussion at the expert level on the issue of missing and displaced persons.

"This week’s political discussions at expert level on missing persons and displaced persons were productive and constructive. Looking forward to the next round of expert talks of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue soon," Lajcak wrote.

The dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina continued after being stalled for almost two years. President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister of Provisional Institutions of Pristina Avdulah Hoti met last week when they spoke in Brussels, with mediation of EU officials.

The conversation continued yesterday, at the EU premises.

Belgrade was represented by Marko Djuric, director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, who headed the delegation which included the Republic Commissioner for Refugees and Migrants Vladimir Cucic, and Veljko Odalovic, State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and President of the Government Commission for Missing Persons.

This week’s political discussions at expert level on missing persons and displaced persons were productive and constructive. Looking forward to the next round of expert talks of the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue soon.— Miroslav Lajčák (@MiroslavLajcak) July 24, 2020

Pristina was represented by the deputy prime minister of so-called Kosovo, Driton Selmanaj, and the head of the Pristina delegation in the working group on missing persons, Ibrahim Makoli.

According to Djuric, during the technical talks in Brussels on missing and displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija the Belgrade delegation requested that criminals from the so-called KLA ("Kosovo Liberation Army") be punished, and recalled that no one has yet been held accountable "for the crime in the village of Staro Gacko near Lipljan, but also for many other terrorist attacks on Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija."

After last week's round of high-level political dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced that experts would continue technical talks regarding locations of possible grave sites, the issue of the return of internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija - 220,000 of them in total, of which 177,000 are Serbs.

On that occasion, Vucic recalled that only 1.9 percent of the expelled people have returned to their homes in Kosovo and Metohija after the conflict, which is the lowest percentage in the world.

(Telegraf.rs)