Ivica Dacic spoke for Belgrade based Prva TV on Wednesday – without confirming that he is one of those who know what the Serbian plan to solve the Kosovo problem is.
The foreign minister and first deputy PM also pointed out that he “could say in detail what that plan may look like.”
“There should be some talks about that… There have never been detailed discussions, I mean during the dialogue with Pristina. President Aleksandar Vucic presented an idea, that is, the principles that should be discussed – but as soon as that became public, somehow the dialogue stalled,” said Dacic.
When the TV Prva interviewer remarked that the idea had not been articulated in the clearest terms – Dacic said that the public had heard the principles, whose aim was to find a compromise solution.
“I’ve been talking about it for many years, that some sort of this separation line should be determined. The interpretation of those countries that have recognized Kosovo is that it has its own borders, while our public, and the Constitution, say that Kosovo is a part of Serbia. There are two basic solutions: one that Kosovo is independent, and ours is that Kosovo should have the highest degree of autonomy within Serbia. Neither of these solutions is acceptable to both sides,” Dacic said.
Asked if the topic of “delimitation” was on the table – the minister replied: “There’s no table for it to be on.”
“No further step has been made at all, to talk about anything concrete,” Dacic said.
Dacic told TV Prva that Pristina explained the cancellation of the taxes as a temporary suspension, but he believed that the cancellation would come and added that Serbia would continue the dialogue once the fees are abolished.
“Now, how they are going to explain this to their in-house public, this is another matter. You have seen that the main actors of political life in the Kosovo and Metohija have declared that the US position need to be listened to. We came to what we were saying from the beginning, and that is, if someone does not exert pressure, which is primarily the United States, that cancellation of the taxes will not happen. Of course, that does not mean that it will be so,” Dacic said.
Asked whether that was a signal from US President Donald Tramp to move the Kosovo issue to the UN, Dacic said that it did not mean that the format would be changed and said that they saw Serbia’s readiness and did not want Kosovo to be an obstacle in finding compromise.
“Not that a change of the format of the dialogue would be now, but possibly if the attitudes are closer, and if seen that an end of this agreement could be reached , then surely the Security Council must be involved, because this agreement should follow certain UN decisions,” said Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic.
