Lasting solution for Kosovo could be found in 2018 - PM

Lasting solution for Kosovo could be found in 2018 - PM

She said the "metaphor of (sitting on) two chairs" - Serbia's ties with both the West and Russia - was "unfortunate."

"I keep saying it's not two chairs, it's one chair, it's Serbian chair. And we are completely for the EU and that's our strategic goal. And again, it's not because of the money, we are not promoting Europe as one big pot of money at the end of that journey," Brnabic said.

Asked about the freedom of the media in Serbia, Brnabic replied that she did not know how the freedom of the media had become an issue, while when asked whether there was pressure on the media the prime minister answered that she was "absolutely sure" that there was none.

"I haven't seen any government which is more open to inviting all the media to their events, responding to questions from the media outlets and really being open," she said, adding, "obviously I am not objective enough because I'm the prime minister and I have my own view - so I try to keep a dialogue open with all these outlets who are now grouped in the Group for Free Media."

Asked about the Hague Tribunal, she said that she did not think that it had brought justice to the former Yugoslav republics or helped reconciliation.

Brnabic said she would "not argue about the convictions themselves" but about "the people who weren't convicted."

She spoke about "terrible crimes in (Croatia's) Operation Storm" - with "more than 250,000 people (Serbs) expelled from Croatia, basically ethnically cleansed" with nobody held responsible, and a similar situation with Bosnian Muslims and the Kosovo Albanian KLA.

"You can't say that there were no crimes committed against Serbs and other non-Albanians, but everyone basically walked free," Brnabic said.

She denied that there had been a genocide in Srebrenica, but called it a heinous crime nonetheless and added that she was ashamed of the image that had been created about Serbs and Serbia based on that.

"Let us please look to the future and leave this behind us. New generations are coming, we have a lot in common. My grandfather was a Croat and he is not a Serb from Croatia, he is a Croat from the island of Krk. I spent my childhood there, I have many friends there, we have many similarities," Brnabic said.

Asked if she would like Yugoslavia to exist again, Brnabic replied: "No."