"No way to force Serbia to recognize Kosovo"

Belgrade negotiating team chief Borislav Stefanovic said on Wednesday that the first concrete results of the Kosovo talks can be expected early next month. This would happen at the regular meeting of delegations of Serbia and the Kosovo Albanian authorities in Brussels. "No way to force Serbia to recognize Kosovo" Referring to demands heard for Serbia to recognize Kosovo - whose ethnic Albanians more than three years ago unilaterally declared independence - Stefanovic told Tanjug that those were "individual interpretations". "Nobody has asked Serbia to do so, nor will the country do that, because there is simply no way to force Serbia to do so," said he. Serbia shares the optimism expressed by mediator in the talks Robert Cooper, carried by the Albanian language media in Pristina, that we are quite close to solutions on the matters of freedom of movement, cadastre, registries, and maybe even power supply, Stefanovic stated. Serbia hopes that at the next meeting, which will be held at the end of June or beginning of July in Brussels, the issues that govern people's lives in Kosovo will be resolved, Stefanovic added. He said that solutions are quite close and expressed hope that Brussels will be able to publish the outcome of previous discussions, all of which are the result of multi-layer communications. "The two teams talk every day and are also in daily contact with the European Union, which is acting very constructively on the issue," he said. Stefanovic added that it is important to emphasize that the Belgrade team has never been the one that hinders or slows down the process of consultations and noted that the solutions that have been reached so far mainly came precisely from the Belgrade team. Borislav Stefanovic (file)

"No way to force Serbia to recognize Kosovo"

Referring to demands heard for Serbia to recognize Kosovo - whose ethnic Albanians more than three years ago unilaterally declared independence - Stefanović told Tanjug that those were "individual interpretations".

"Nobody has asked Serbia to do so, nor will the country do that, because there is simply no way to force Serbia to do so," said he.

Serbia shares the optimism expressed by mediator in the talks Robert Cooper, carried by the Albanian language media in Priština, that we are quite close to solutions on the matters of freedom of movement, cadastre, registries, and maybe even power supply, Stefanović stated.

Serbia hopes that at the next meeting, which will be held at the end of June or beginning of July in Brussels, the issues that govern people's lives in Kosovo will be resolved, Stefanović added.

He said that solutions are quite close and expressed hope that Brussels will be able to publish the outcome of previous discussions, all of which are the result of multi-layer communications.

"The two teams talk every day and are also in daily contact with the European Union, which is acting very constructively on the issue," he said.

Stefanović added that it is important to emphasize that the Belgrade team has never been the one that hinders or slows down the process of consultations and noted that the solutions that have been reached so far mainly came precisely from the Belgrade team.