Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic will meet local Serbian political representatives this week on his first visit to Kosovo since taking up the premier’s post last year.
Serbian officials said that Vucic will pay his first visit to Kosovo this week since becoming Prime Minister of Serbia in April 2014, most likely on Wednesday.
Marko Djuric, head of the Serbian government office for Kosovo, said Vucic planned to visit Gracanica, a large Serbian enclave near Pristina, as well as Serb-run municipalities in central Kosovo, Pasjane and Strpce.
“For our people who live there, the Prime Minister’s visit will be an extremely important symbol and signal, especially because not a single senior official of the state and government has visited this part of the province since the early 1990s,” Djuric told TV Pink on Sunday.
Media in Kosovo reported that the Serbian government office had officially requested the Kosovo government’s assistance in crossing the border at the Konculj-Dheu i Bardhe crossing.
Vucic is expected to visit Gracanica on the eve of extraordinary elections in the Serb-majority town, which were called after former mayor Branimir Stojanovic resigned to take up a post as deputy prime minister of Kosovo in December.
The campaign in Gracanica is starting on Monday, and one of the candidates for the mayor is Vladeta Kostic, from Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party.
Vucic is not expected to visit the Kosovo capital or to meet Pristina officials. He last visited Gracanica in January 2013, when he was deputy prime minister.
