Most online media in Kosovo and Serbia reported on an interview of Tirana based Top Chanel with Ramush Haradinaj, candidate for Prime Minister, saying that when it comes to Kosovo-Serbia talks there is one condition and that is Belgrade’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence. He further argued that the framework of talks was wrong because it focused on Kosovo’s internal arrangements.
-I am in favour of dialogue with Serbia, but only with mutual recognition. We will not agree to discuss Kosovo’s internal arrangements. If Serbia does not reconsider its decision on recognizing Kosovo, we will not run after a dialogue that includes Kosovo’s internal arrangements, said Haradinaj in the interview.
Belgrade based daily Danas reported Ivica Dačić, the Acting Prime Minister of Serbia and Minister of Foreign Affairs, as saying in Kragujevac, after a ceremony marking 180 years of diplomatic relations between Serbia and Great Britain, that Serbia wants to continue dialogue and it wants the formation of Community/Association of Serb municipalities (ZSO) to begin.
Dačić said that it is too early to talk about how it would look like to negotiate with Haradinaj because the format of the dialogue is still unknown.
– You know what Serbia thinks of Haradinaj and for what he was charged. I do not think it will be pleasant for European officials, too, said Dačić.
Daily newspaper Blic yesterday wrote about the dialogue and carried some opinion on possible further dialogue in the light of the new team from Pristina.
Whether the dialogue stays at the level of prime ministers, or it “transfers” to the level of the presidents, as proposed by Hashim Thaçi, the “hot potato” will be in Serbia’s hands, reports the daily.
Dušan Proroković, from the Center for Strategic Alternatives, says for Blic that if the negotiations are at presidential level, certainly that it will not be about the technical details. He said that he fears that Serbia will be offered something like a model of “two Germany’s” and by the principle “take it or leave it”.
– I do not believe that Vučić will sit down at the table and talk with Haradinaj. It is about a man whose extradition we are looking for, accusing him of war crimes … For Vučić and anyone else would have been a great humiliation to sit with him at the table. That’s why Thaçi’s “matrix” of switching to the level of the Presidents seems to me more realistic, said Proroković to Blic.
Vice President of the Center for Foreign Policy Dragan Đukanović thinks that the EU will have to exert pressure, primarily on Pristina – to have a little more flexible attitude towards Belgrade. Probably and the US and EU will engage with that to speed up the whole story. It is unrealistic to make any predictions, but that it will be easy – it will not, concluded Đukanović for daily Blic.
