The Western Balkans region has become a recruiting ground for the Islamic State, Serbian Internal Affairs Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic told a conference on terrorism in Russia yesterday, TV N1 reported.

 A press release from the Serbian Internal Affairs Ministry said that Stefanovic told the conference that most of the combatants the Islamic State recruited were from Bosnia and Kosovo with about 800 of them going to Syria and Iraq.

The entire region is at a crossroad and it is expected certain open issues to be closed. For Serbia it is the normalization of relations with Pristina, Centre for Foreign Policy Director, Aleksandra Joksimovic told RTS.

According to Joksimovic often visits of the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini to Serbia and other countries in the region speak about EU enlargement focus and attempt to give to the Western Balkans clear European perspective.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic took part in a working dinner in Skopje on Wednesday, the Serbian government announced.

The dinner was organized by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev "for representatives of the Western Balkans as part of the visit of Mogherini to the region."

The topics discussed were European integration, current political and security situation, as well as regional political and economic cooperation, a statement said.

The headlines in Serbian media about French President Emmanuel Macron closing EU's door to Serbia are not correct, says French Ambassador Frederic Mondoloni.

Macron told the European parliament on Tuesday that he will "only support an enlargement when there is first a deepening and a reform of our Europe."

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic will a dinner in Skopje on Monday organized by Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev for his colleagues from the region.

Tanjug is reporting that it received confirmation of this, and that beside Zaev and Brnabic, the dinner will be attended by prime ministers of Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as the Kosovo prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj.

United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres appreciates cooperation of Serbia with the UN, a press statement reads following the meeting between UN SG Guterres and the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

The statement also said the two officials discussed several topics related to the Western Balkans.

Serbian President Office announced yesterday Vucic conferred with Guterres on the situation in the region and current state of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

The Western Balkans "clearly see much more in us than we ourselves see in our Union," says European Commission (EC) President Jean Claude Juncker.

In his address to the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Juncker stressed that "each of the Western Balkan partners must continue their reform path, especially when it comes to the rule of law and fundamental freedoms and values."

Senior American official's Balkan tour shows that America is committed to preventing disputes between Balkan states from becoming ‘frozen conflicts’, analysts say.

The new US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Wess Mitchell, started a tour of Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Greece on Monday, aiming to address various potential frozen conflicts in the Balkans region.

EU ministers are to discuss new security initiatives with the Western Balkans in what is seen as the first step toward EU accession.

Brussels has said it hopes the Western Balkan states will join the bloc by 2025.

European interior ministers convened in Brussels on Thursday to discuss how the bloc will coordinate its latest security and migration policies with Western Balkan states.

Jean-Claude Juncker said after visiting Skopje, Tirana, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Podgorica, and Pristina that he "promised no one an accession date."

The European Commission president told Deutsche Welle that he also "didn't give states that are not yet negotiating a date to begin negotiations," adding that he was "not interested in fixing dates on a calendar as much as in substance."

"I care about dates, but not to the point that I would forget the substance in talks," said Juncker.