The Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmedov and other senior Azerbaijani officials told the Serbian officials that the country would never recognize the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo and expressed appreciation for Serbia’s readiness to treat the Nagorno-Karabakh issue in the same manner. Serbia’s Minister without Portfolio in charge of European integration Jadranka Joksimovic and Director of the government’s Office for Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) Marko Djuric met with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmedov and pointed to the principled p

Kosovo Serbs hope that President Tomislav Nikolic’s new ‘Kosovo platform’ will finally address the longstanding issue of Serbs who were abducted or went missing during and after the war.

The Association of Missing and Kidnapped Kosovo Serbs said on Monday that Nikolic’s so-called ‘Kosovo platform’ was their “last hope” of finding out what happened to more than 1,000 Kosovo Serbs who went missing during and after the 1999 war.

The front page editorial of this daily stresses that according to the most recent study of the Group for Judicial and Political Studies the level of the Kosovo people willing to emigrate remains high, even after the massive emigrations of the last months. This paper further criticizes the current government for “not managing to return hope to the disappointed people and for deepening their grief with the corrupted system.”

The special court and investigation of crimes during and after conflict are conditions for normalization of relations in Kosovo, said Special Representative of the European Union in Kosovo Samuel Žbogar in RTK2 TV talk show "Razgovor". He assessed that creation of the court is the most difficult thing for Kosovo. “I hope that Kosovo parliament will vote for constitutional amendments in order to clear all accusations which are hanging over Kosovo, and that instead of Kosovo, which is a hostage of those accusations, individuals take over the responsibility.

Minister for Communities and Return in the Kosovo government, Dalibor Jevtic, said to Novosti that the Ministry’s budget is halved, what puts the Ministry in a very uncomfortable financial situation. From that reason Jevtic initiated a revision of the budget, aimed at providing more funds for return projects.

Augustin Palokaj, Brussels based correspondent of this daily, considers that there is more attentiveness this time in continental Europe about the upcoming elections in the Great Britain than ever before. This, due to the promise of the British Conservative Party for a referendum on UK’s membership at the European Union, which in theory means that this country might leave the EU. Despite the frequent irritation that they cause, writes Palokaj, no one in Europe would want them to leave the EU.

Citizens’ Initiative SDP, headed by Oliver Ivanovic, hailed statement of the Serbian President, Tomislav Nikolic, about the near accomplishment of the platform on the status of Kosovo and Metohija, and assessed that all social factors should be involved in that process. “If a respond of the European Union to this proposal would be indecent, that would be undoubted evidence that they don’t want us in the EU.

Minister for Communities and Return in the Kosovo government Dalibor Jevtic said that there was no meaningful return of displaced persons from Kosovo in latest five months and that only one family has returned to village Crkolez in Istok/Istog Municipality, which is the only officially registered return in said period, reported Tanjug. Jevtic expects the creation of an inter-ministerial group in order that other ministries and institutions assist in the process of return.

On question “Whether you agree that Serbia recognizes Kosovo for the sake of the EU membership?”, three-quarters of young in Serbia replied “No”. According to a poll carried out for Belgrade-based daily Politika between 25 and 29 April, on the sample of 800 young people aged between 18 and 25 years, 16 percent of respondents said that independence of Kosovo should be recognized, whereas 10 percent were not sure. Young in Serbia are not keen to extreme political standpoints, particularly the right ones, showed the poll carried out by Faktor plus agency. 32 per