UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern over the slow pace of implementation of agreements in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue over the past year.

Kosovo's admission to European football's governing body UEFA is evidently a political decision and a result of major political pressure.

Foreign Minister in the outgoing Serbian government Ivica Dacic said this on Tuesday.

He also reiterated that Serbia "will never recognize Kosovo" - its southern province where ethnic Albanians in 2008 unilaterally declared independence.

The President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, recalled the first agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, signed three years ago between the former Prime Minister of Serbia, Ivica Dacic and the then Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci.

During the election campaign for the Serbian parliamentary elections, some leaders of political parties visited Kosovo, while entry into Kosovo  for others like the President of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), Vojislav Seselj and the Chief of the Serbian General Staff, Ljubisa Dikovic, was denied in advance. The reasons, as Petrit Selimi, the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Government of Kosovo, says, are that they are war criminals and that they will never enter Kosovo.

Serbia-Russia relations are developing successfully in all areas, Russian FM Sergei Lavrov and his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic agreed on Friday.

Russia is "one of Serbia's most important strategic partners and Belgrade is thankful to Moscow for its support in international organisations on the issue of Kosovo," TASS quoted Dacic as saying before his meeting with Lavrov in Moscow.

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Ivica Dacic, said that without Russian Federation, Serbian political partner in recent decades, Kosovo would already be admitted to the United Nations. "If Vladimir Putin would be Russian President at the time we were introduced sanctions, when Serbia was in problems and during the wars in former Yugoslavia, Serbia certainly would not have been bombed," said Dacic.

Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic met with representatives of students from Belgrade and Pristina faculties today, who last year, during the Kosovo initiative for membership in UNESCO, organized the "No Kosovo in UNESCO" campaign. Dacic thanked the students for their extensive contributions for Serbia’s victory in UNESCO.

Serbia cannot be "a punching bag" for representatives of Kosovo institutions on occasions such as UN Security Council sessions. This was the message of Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic, who pointed out that Belgrade "is not afraid" and that negotiations with Pristina represent "our strength, not weakness."
"As much as Serbia is trying to extend a hand, we have nobody to extend it towards," Dacic said, reacting strongly to the address during a UN Security Council session on Kosovo by Kosovo's ambassador to the U.S., Vlora Citaku.

A regular meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Kosovo will be held in New York on Monday.

Serbia will be represented by the country's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic.

The session will discuss the latest report of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the work of the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, and the situation there over the previous three-month period.

The report is expected to be presented by UNMIK chief Zahir Tanin.

During the meeting with the Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, the outgoing ambassador of Mexico in Serbia Jose Evaristo Ramon Xilotl Ramirez said that he is convinced that the Mexican government will not change its stance towards the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo. Dacic, who received Ramirez in a farewell visit, especially thanked for the principled support of Mexico for the territorial integrity of Serbia and its vital interests in Kosovo and Metohija.