Beta news agency reported today Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he was not optimistic about the upcoming talks with Pristina representatives in Brussels, but that Belgrade would not give up on dialogue, since talks are the only solution towards a compromise.
“The talks in Brussels are ahead of us. I am not an optimist, but Serbs will make efforts to reach a compromise,” Vucic told reporters at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts after the opening of a two-day international conference of the anti-corruption portal “Pistaljka/Whistle”.
He said he was worried about frequent attacks on Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija in recent days, adding that it was a campaign of intimidation against Serbian people there, for which he did not know whether it was ordered by a local or senior official. “Until now, we have managed to preserve peace and stability, but this is becoming increasingly difficult because Albanians are getting more and more nervous,” Vucic said.
When asked about the end of EULEX mandate in Kosovo, Vucic said EULEX representatives in Kosovo would remain there, but that they did not want to say it outright not to aggravate the Pristina authorities.
“We were hoping they would always perform their work professionally, but that was not always at the highest level,” he said, adding that “the state made a big mistake in the past, accepting that EULEX was enabled to perform their function in Kosovo without Serbia getting something for it” and “we should have insisted on Resolution 1244”.
Meanwhile, media outlet Telegraf reported Vucic also spoke about the issue of energy and pointed out that this topic “can come at the end, when the Brussels Agreement is fulfilled”.
“They want the energy in order to take Gazivode physically. I said that a thousand times. I said that this cannot be, and I’ll repeat it another million times. Everything they do is about the north and deployment of their troops in the north,” Serbian President said.
“They have only one dream, which is to take the north,” Vucic added, reminding that they had already came twice to the north Kosovo (barged in) without a consent.
Responding to a question if Serbia could deploy one thousand of its armed forces as UN Resolution 1244 stipulated and related to frequent attacks against Serbs there, Vucic responded if Serbia would enter Kosovo with its army, NATO would treat it as an act of enemy and “we would be in conflict with the strongest countries in the world”. He also added the great powers do not recognize, respectively, have no intention to respect Resolution 1244.
“It is up to us to fight in accordance with very small possibilities and within a very narrow space for maneuvering. What we have, we will use to fight for our Serbia, our country and our people,” Vucic said.
