Increased diplomatic activity before new round of dialogue in Brussels

Photo: Tanjug/AP/Milos Milivojevic

The Council of Europe could start the procedure for Kosovo's admission to that organization this week, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic, adding that his visit to Strasbourg planned for today is under the question mark because of this.

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There is no information about the next meeting of political negotiators in Brussels, but mediator Miroslav Lajcak is preparing for it.

Summing up the past week on Facebook, he expressed his concern about the events in Kosovo and Metohija, and he expects both sides to focus on normalizing relations, reports RTS.

A new meeting between Aleksandar Vucic and Albin Kurti could happen on May 2. Although there is no official confirmation, the head of Serbian diplomacy announces increased diplomatic activities of Belgrade until that time.

One uncertainty is the visit to Strasbourg on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Serbia's admission to that organization. According to Dacic, his trip is uncertain because of hints that the procedure for Kosovo's admission to the Council of Europe (CoE) could begin a day later.

"That is humiliation and a message that Kosovo can do whatever it wants. If those hints are true, I will certainly not go to Strasbourg tomorrow (Tuesday), because the Council of Europe has never accepted something that is not a state (as a member). And it is impossible that on the one hand you are defending the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and on the other hand someone is destroying the territorial integrity of Serbia," said the head of Serbian diplomacy, Ivica Dacic.

According to him, someone obviously considers our constructive approach to be our weakness, and we will certainly not allow for it.

The day when the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe could support the admission of Kosovo will be the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Brussels agreement. Pristina's refusal to form the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO), which should be one of the topics of the meeting of political negotiators in Brussels, continues as well.

"This week in Brussels was relatively quiet for me, which gave me the opportunity to work on documents important for implementation of the dialogue agreement and to delve deeper into current events and moods in the region. Unfortunately, some of these events are worrying, and we expect the parties to fully focus on normalization of relations," said EU's special envoy for dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, Miroslav Lajcak.

Expectations from the European Union, which mediates in the negotiations, are presented by historian Predrag Markovic.

"It is time for the EU to show responsibility when it comes to the Kosovo issue. So in a situation where one side honors everything it promised to do, that is the Serbian side, and the other side does nothing, we can really ask ourselves how much the EU's reputation is being undermined by the Pristina side," said historian Markovic.

The director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija asks the international community - before the elections in the north of the province organized by Pristina - how western representatives intend to explain the fact that purely Serb municipalities will be led by representatives of only 2 percent of the population there, i.e., Albanians, who will be the only ones to vote.

(Telegraf.rs)