United States Assistant Deputy Secretary of State, Matthew Palmer, said in an interview to BBC in Serbian that Belgrade and Pristina must return to the table of talks before elections in Serbia scheduled for spring next year. “Elections in Serbia will be held next spring and it is important for talks to resume as soon as possible because the election cycle will make them more difficult,” he said. Palmer said Kosovo must lift the import tariff on Serbian and Bosnian goods and for the process of dialogue to resume. Palmer said the format of talks between Pristina and Belgrade will not change and that Washington had no role in postponing the Paris Summit. “The United States support the process. We are not part of the talks, but we support the EU-brokered dialogue since the beginning,” he added. Palmer said he does not expect the U.S. presidential elections next year to have any impact on the pace of talks between the two countries. “I don’t expect elections in the U.S. to have an impact in terms of our support to the process of normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina. This is a long-standing position of the administrations in Washington,” he said. Palmer also denied reports in some media according to which U.S. senior diplomat Philip Reeker could become involved in the process of talks.
Palmer with message for Pristina and Belgrade (Express/BBC)
- Published: 5 years ago on 28/06/2019
- By: OSCPA F
- Last Modified: June 28, 2019 @ 10:14 am
- Filed Under: Articles from Kosovo media