Armed Albanian formations cannot enter North - Dacic

Armed Albanian formations cannot enter North - Dacic

Reacting to a KFOR spokesperson saying that members of the Rosu unit can go to northern (mostly Serb) part of Kosovo without first obtaining permission, the Serbian minister said that KFOR's interpretation was that this this unit is not part of the armed, but of the police force - "but these are individual interpretations."

The head of the Serbian diplomacy believes that there should be "a practical way of characterizing all these forces."

"We never talked about whether Rosu, or an army, can enter the north without the consent of KFOR and the mayors of Serb municipalities - we always talked about armed formations of Albanians - so NATO would have to have a manual about what we agreed on, and forward it to the representatives in the field," Dacic said.

The minister also said that the US did not request a change in the (EU-mediated) format of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, and that there have been no official initiatives to this end so far.

"By that I don' t mean the daily statements about the expansion of the format coming from Pristina. That's an expression of dissatisfaction that they have toward (EU official) Federica Mogherini. On the other hand, the US are not asking to join the dialogue. A change in its format is not a topic that is being discussed at this moment," he said.

Dacic added that, if this change were to occur, Serbia would ask for Russia to be included too - and recalled that Russian officials have already said they would be willing to do so.

"You don't think we're crazy to expand the format with those countries that recognized Kosovo, and leave Russia and China on the sidelines," Dacic said. According to him, these countries will certainly have to be included if an agreement - which is far away now - is reached, "in the sense of verifying it in the UN Security Council."

Responding to questions from journalists, Dacic said that Serbia has friendly ties with Russia, and is keeping Moscow up to date about all the goings-on in the dialogue, while there are no disagreements or differences, "which will be confirmed by Vladimir Putin's visit on January 17."

Serbia, he added, will not agree to any solution that it had not informed its allies, Russia and China, about, along with other countries that support it.

Dacic also commented on statements being made by Pristina authorities, to say they want to establish "a link" with some branches of the US government, adding that in-fighting is taking place in Pristina.

"Their political scene is turned toward the internal needs. Every day they're declaring victories, only they're doing badly on the international scene. There is not a single foreign policy success that they have achieved," Dacic said.

Pristina authorities, he said, are now like Alice in Wonderland - "they don't know what's happening to them, how come somebody is now withdrawing recognitions."

"They said that Serbia had a two, three hundred million fund set aside for Kosovo recognition withdrawals... if we did, Kosovo would revoke its recognition (of Kosovo)," said Dacic.