"Responsibility lies on Priština, those who influence it"

BELGRADE -- Advisor to the Serbian president Marko Đurić says Serbia has done "everything politically and humanly possible" for compromise with Priština to be reached.

Marko Đurić (Tanjug, file)

Speaking for the country's public broadcaster RTS on Tuesday, he added that the responsibility for the outcome of the dialogue does not only lie with Priština but also with the countries that have the leverage to influence it and the possibility to "push it towards a compromise."

According to Đurić, Serbia will never renounce its goals established by the Platform and the parliamentary Resolution on Kosovo-Metohija, because, by defending the association of Serb municipalities, Serbia is defending the Serb community's right to survival in Kosovo and Metohija.

The presidential advisor also said that informal papers circulated from different sides in the previous months, but added that nobody asked Belgrade or Priština to formally commit themselves to these documents.

"In the next round of the dialogue, we expect to see in writing the European Commission's positions as a mediator, but also to hear, or read, that Priština has moved at least an inch relative to the starting point in the negotiations, which was very rigid and did not leave any room for a compromise," Đurić said.

He qualified as very interesting the appearance of different "non-paper" documents in the media and said he does not know who "the author of these fake papers" is.

According to him, it is possible that someone wanted to see what both official and unofficial circles in Belgrade think about some of the solutions mentioned in the papers.

"It is also possible that someone, from circles close to Priština or I do not know to whom, wants to lower the expectations of our public in a way. Our goal and state policy are not written in some "non-papers" or informal documents, but in the Resolution and in the Platform, and all state bodies and officials will stick to that until the end," Đurić concluded.