Belgrade based daily Blic writes on the importance of Czech President Milos Zeman invitation to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to participate in Visegrad Group Summit.
Daily considers that the invitation was "a kind of precedent" and added that, "as a rule, these meetings do not discuss topics on which participants have divergent views, Kosovo could be a topic".
Germany's stance that Kosovo's independence is a done thing, as well as opposition to border adjustments or division, are hypocritical and arrogant, the Left MP said.
"These messages about the 'finished thing' are hypocritical. For 20 years, the German governments have worked one after the other to split Yugoslavia along ethnic lines, despite EU and UN recommendations not to do so," said German parliamentarian Zaklin Nastic.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis met with the Czech President Milos Zeman to discuss the idea of Czech Republic's revocation of Kosovo's independence
Babis told reporters that he would discuss the matter at Coordination meeting of Czech Foreign Policy, as he, as Prime Minister, cannot decide on this alone, on behalf of the government.
Czech President Milos Zeman who said earlier in Belgrade he intends to ask for a possibility that Prague revokes recognition of Kosovo, told the media there he has two arguments to support his request – investigations conducted against Kosovo officials before the Special Court in the Hague and the fact that the Lower Chamber of the Czech Parliament at the time suggested that Prague should not recognize Kosovo.
Overshadowed by the Czech President Milos Zeman's statement that his country might reconsider the decision on recognition of Kosovo independence, the Western Balkans’ leaders and the so-called Visegrad Group (V4) met in Prague without Pristina’s top politicians, the Beta news agency reported.
However, Kosovo is represented by its Charge d'Affaires, officially due to internal politics related to October 6 early elections, but unofficially, according to the Czech CTK news agency, because of Zeman’s statement.
Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Rasim Ljajic said the Czech Republic President statement that Prague might reconsider the decision on recognition of Kosovo independence, as well as voices from Brussels and Washington about the need for compromise, showed that Pristina’s status had not been solved yet, BETA news agency reports on Thursday.
Ljajic also told RTS that one shouldn’t be optimistic that Milos Zeman’s statement would influence other European Union member states, but it showed that in Prague as well as in the EU, there was no consent about the issue.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said he is ready to debate with the Czech President Milos Zeman about Kosovo, B92 reports. President Zeman said yesterday in Belgrade that he would in a month time during the meeting of constitutional authorities in Prague ask whether it is possible to revoke recognition of Kosovo, Serbian media reported.
Czech President Milos Zeman said in Belgrade today that he would in one month, during the meeting of constitutional authorities in Prague, ask the question, is it possible to revoke recognition of Kosovo independence, Kosovo-online portal reports.
He said this responding to a journalist’s question could it be expected that some EU state in the upcoming period thinks and revises its stance on Kosovo independence.
Milos Zeman, the Czech Republic’s President, said on Friday he did not exclude the possibility of Prague’s withdrawal of the recognition of Kosovo’s independence, adding “it would be difficult, but still one day” not impossible, the Beta news agency reported.
In an interview with Parlamentnji Listi, a pro-Russian website, Zeman, whose administrative role is more of a ceremonial one, while decisions on such things are within the Government responsibility, has said that “war criminals shouldn’t lead any country in Europe.”
On the eve of celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Czech Republic’s NATO membership, the country’s President Milos Zeman said the Alliance’s bombing of the then Yugoslavia in 1999 was a mistake and that he did not gladly look back at the time, BETA news agency reported.
Zeman said the Czech Republic was the newest NATO member who joined the Alliance only three weeks before the decision on the bombing of Yugoslavia was made, and that “it would not have been normal for a newcomer to veto the move as the only country to do so.”