Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic held a meeting with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze in Belgrade on Thursday at which they noted a mutual commitment to territorial integrity as the basic principle of peaceful development of international relations.

Dacic thanked Ukraine for its active participation in Kfor, whose troops, with sincere support from the local Serb population, protect Serbian holy sites in Kosovo-Metohija.

Germany "supports Serbia's European Union membership and there are no new conditions for the country on the path towards the EU."

However, it is expected to coordinate its foreign policy with EU positions, German Ambassador to Serbia Axel Dittmann said Thursday.

Serbia's position on Kosovo-Metohija's membership in international organisations is unchanged, the head of the government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Marko Djuric said Tuesday, reiterating that only an integral Serbia can be an EU member state.

Commenting on reports by some Serbian media that Germany will not ratify the agreement on Serbia's EU accession until Kosovo becomes a full UN member, Djuric said:

In Serbia, there are 204,049 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Kosovo-Metohija, the director of the Serbian government office for Kosovo-Metohija said on Tuesday, noting that the return of Serbs and other non-Albanians is limited by a lack of a mechanism for a return of usurped property.

Seventeen years after the conflict in Serbia's southern province, the problem of displaced persons remains, Djuric said at the third high-level regional forum on permanent solutions for displaced persons from Kosovo-Metohija.

Kosovo's authorities will in the next few days set up a working group to establish the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO).

That is what Kosovo President Hashim Thaci told Tanjug on Thursday.

Thaci could not specify who the members of the working group will be, but noted that there will be no representatives of Serbia.

He said that he respected Serbia's legitimate interest regarding its people who live in the territory of Kosovo, but that Kosovo was "an independent state."

Serbs in Kosovo must start establishing the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO), according to Civic Initiative SDP leader Oliver Ivanovic.

Ethnic Albanians' opposition to the formation of this community, agreed on during the EU-sponspored Belgrade-Pristina talks, "will subside only when they realize that it will be formed with or without them," Ivanovic said in a letter he wrote in prison.

Spain supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia and it will never recognise Kosovo's independence, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel García-Margallo said on Wednesday.

This year marks the centenary of the diplomatic relations between Serbia and Spain, where Spain's support for Serbia's territorial integrity is a crucial pillar, Margallo said after a meeting with Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic.

Ulrike Lunacek has said that she is "not an enemy of Serbia" and that she is "certain Serbia will not join the EU without recognizing Kosovo."

Speaking in Belgrade on Thursday, the European Parliament (EP) vice-president and rapporteur for Kosovo added this was true "not because she claims it, but because of the experience that the EU has with Cyprus."

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic Wednesday condemned an attack on a TV Most crew in Obilic, central Kosovo on Tuesday.

Violence against journalists is an attack on freedom of speech and society in general, Mijatovic said in a release.

Mijatovic said it was important to carry out a swift and thorough investigation into the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice.

A house for returnees, which was under construction in the village of Tomance, Kosovo's Istok/Istog municipality, was set on fire last night, reports the Kosovo Ministry for Returns and Communities.

The house is being built for a Serb returnee and his family as part of an EU-funded project of the ministry.