Vucic: Kosovo proposal in March; foreigners won't interfere

Vucic: Kosovo proposal in March; foreigners won't interfere

"If someone cannot understand it, then that's their problem. Let everyone know: we will conducted a unified-Serbia policy, in which foreigners will not interfere as long as I am at the helm of the state!," Vucic said.

Asked to comment on "whether US Ambassador in Belgrade Kyle Scott had directly interfered in Serbia's internal affairs by publicly criticizing Defense Minister Aleksadar Vulin" - Vucic said that he "does not think so" and added: "The whole case has been raised to a much higher level than it deserves."

"Scott did not say anything particularly new. These are his known views. But in our country, foreigners will not be conducting our policy," he said.

March next year is a realistic date for us to come out with a proposal on Kosovo and Metohija, Vucic also said.

"That will certainly be a solution different from the easiest 'solutions' such as chest-thumping and sloganeering about our territory of one million years, as well as the other, where you are being asked to say, 'long live independent Kosovo'. It will be a solution that will require painful compromises on both sides, and one that will be attacked from all sides," Vucic told the newspaper, in the interview to be published in its 64th anniversary issue.

Asked whether "our state has the capacity to achieve a partition of the province," Vucic replied: "Anything I would suggest at this moment would be interpreted as imposing a solution."

"I want to hear what people think about it. We are not alone in that dialogue. The US, Russia, China, the EU all have a say. The Albanians also have a say," he stated.

As for the request of Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj to include the US in the ongoing EU-facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, Vucic said: "As far as we are concerned, the EU is the main mediator."

"(Serbia's) former authorities headed by (Boris) Tadic and (Vuk) Jeremic accepted that this topic be moved from the UN. Although we respect the role of the United States, any change in the format of the dialogue would require agreement and Serbia's consent," Vucic said.

When it comes to the announced national declaration, the president said that a team of prominent professors was working on the text, and that he believes that "everything will be finished by the end of the year."

When the interviewer remarked that "a part of the so-called civil society is stigmatizing this text as a new 'Greater Serbia' manifesto," Vucic said:

"Maybe all those are afraid of the possibility that the Serbs might get a brain and start thinking about themselves and their future. According to them, the Serbs not only have no right to think about their past - they must not even think about the future."