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AS NEVER BEFORE SERBIA IS CLOSE TO THE SETTLEMENT OF RELATIONS WITH KOSOVO. TOMISLAV NIKOLIC
21:38, 14 March, 2013
YEREVAN, MARCH 13, ARMENPRESS: Serbia and Kosovo said on Thursday
they were close to a deal to end the ethnic partition of the former
Serbian province with Belgrade coming under increasing pressure from
the European Union as it nears a decision on opening membership talks,
reports Armenpress, referring to Reuters.
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said the two sides were "never
closer" to settling their differences, after separate talks with EU
foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton in Pristina and Belgrade.
The clock is now ticking till a mid-April progress report by Ashton
that will decide whether the EU launches membership talks with Serbia,
a major milestone in the country's recovery from Yugoslavia's bloody
collapse and a vital signal of stability to much-needed investors.
Majority-Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008,
almost a decade after NATO bombs wrested control of the territory
from late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic to halt a brutal
counter-insurgency war.
But Belgrade retained de facto control over a small Serb pocket of
northern Kosovo, and says it will never recognize its former southern
province as a sovereign state.
The status of the Serb north, where Kosovo's government has very
little presence, is at the heart of EU-mediated negotiations aimed at
"normalizing ties" between the two.
Progress on the issue will decide whether the EU opens accession talks
with Serbia in June, a process that would drive reform and potentially
lure investors to the biggest economy in the former Yugoslavia.
"Right now we are at the beginning of the end in reaching an agreement
to normalize relations between the state of Kosovo and Serbia,"
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former guerrilla commander,
told reporters after meeting Ashton in Pristina.
In Belgrade, Nikolic said the EU might circulate a "non-paper" ahead
of the latest direct talks between Thaci and Serbian Prime Minister
Ivica Dacic in Brussels on March 20.
"We've never been so close to an agreement on how to organize life
in Kosovo and to make it possible for all residents there to live as
people should live," Nikolic said.
In a significant U-turn in official policy, Serbia's nine-month-old
coalition government, an alliance last in power under Milosevic,
has offered to recognize the authority of Thaci's government over
northern Kosovo, in exchange for autonomy for the Serbs living there.
But the two sides have been at odds for months over the powers any
Serb institutions in the north would have.
"We want compromise, but we won't accept humiliation," Dacic said
after he and Nikolic met Ashton. "That's our clear message ahead of
March 20."
21:38, 14 March, 2013
YEREVAN, MARCH 13, ARMENPRESS: Serbia and Kosovo said on Thursday
they were close to a deal to end the ethnic partition of the former
Serbian province with Belgrade coming under increasing pressure from
the European Union as it nears a decision on opening membership talks,
reports Armenpress, referring to Reuters.
Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said the two sides were "never
closer" to settling their differences, after separate talks with EU
foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton in Pristina and Belgrade.
The clock is now ticking till a mid-April progress report by Ashton
that will decide whether the EU launches membership talks with Serbia,
a major milestone in the country's recovery from Yugoslavia's bloody
collapse and a vital signal of stability to much-needed investors.
Majority-Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008,
almost a decade after NATO bombs wrested control of the territory
from late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic to halt a brutal
counter-insurgency war.
But Belgrade retained de facto control over a small Serb pocket of
northern Kosovo, and says it will never recognize its former southern
province as a sovereign state.
The status of the Serb north, where Kosovo's government has very
little presence, is at the heart of EU-mediated negotiations aimed at
"normalizing ties" between the two.
Progress on the issue will decide whether the EU opens accession talks
with Serbia in June, a process that would drive reform and potentially
lure investors to the biggest economy in the former Yugoslavia.
"Right now we are at the beginning of the end in reaching an agreement
to normalize relations between the state of Kosovo and Serbia,"
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former guerrilla commander,
told reporters after meeting Ashton in Pristina.
In Belgrade, Nikolic said the EU might circulate a "non-paper" ahead
of the latest direct talks between Thaci and Serbian Prime Minister
Ivica Dacic in Brussels on March 20.
"We've never been so close to an agreement on how to organize life
in Kosovo and to make it possible for all residents there to live as
people should live," Nikolic said.
In a significant U-turn in official policy, Serbia's nine-month-old
coalition government, an alliance last in power under Milosevic,
has offered to recognize the authority of Thaci's government over
northern Kosovo, in exchange for autonomy for the Serbs living there.
But the two sides have been at odds for months over the powers any
Serb institutions in the north would have.
"We want compromise, but we won't accept humiliation," Dacic said
after he and Nikolic met Ashton. "That's our clear message ahead of
March 20."