Vucic: Serbs would beat me with frying pan because of Kosovo

Vucic: Serbs would beat me with frying pan because of Kosovo

"That's my job and it's important that we are meeting, and it's better to be meeting, if that will save the life of any child or elderly person in Kosovo," said Vucic.

He recalled that "we all nkow when we talk about Kosovo that the Serb army and police withdrew in 1999 and that foreign services arrived in their place."

Ever since, the president continued, "not a single investigation has been completed, nobody's been held responsible for the (anti-Serb) March Pogrom, or the expulsion of our people from their ancestral homes."

"The international community's stance is no longer, 'standards before status' - now it is, 'status only'," he observed.

"Since the time known as the Tadic-Kostunica conflict, the world recognized Kosovo and you're asking from me today for the leading powers and all countries that recognized Kosovo to now say, 'sorry, we made a mistake'. That will not happen, and everyone is playing dumb. At least we managed to get back to the negotiating table," Vucic said, and then reached for a chess metaphor for the second time in as many days:

"We managed to take down two of their pawns and have the queen in the minus. We are fighting under impossible conditions, and the whole time we're being told, 'this is bad, that is bad'... Well then say what's good, but realistic. There's none of that. We are talking about damage control the whole time. For a year I fought just to return Serbia to that chess match."

Vucic also said he was grateful to the German chancellor - with whom he met in Berlin earlier in the week - for hearing him out, and added that Angela Merkel's position "would have been had he not shown a degree of courage."

"I told them - do you want a solution? Do you want to see Serbia humiliated? I told that Sigmar (Gabriel, German Foreign Minister) too, and I told him they won't be seeing that movie. We want compromise, we want to reach agreement and that's important, to have better relations. But, you can't gain everything while the Serbs get nothing," Vucic said.

The president repeated that he asked Gabriel how he was supposed to go before the Serbs and tell them, Kosovo is lost - "and that's what our friends said."

"Then all Serbs would pick up a frying pan and hit me on the head," Vucic said.