VIENNA -- Serbia's decision "not to approve" his visit to Belgrade is "contrary to the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue," Hashim Thaci has said.

"It will certainly have its consequences," Thaci, who serves as Kosovo's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, told the Vienna daily Presse.

If the European Union does not change its position and become more proactive in the preparation of dialogue, Belgrade and Pristina could lose strength to go in the desired direction, said the analyst Dusan Janjic. Speaking on TV B92, Janjic said that this is a critical year for Kosovo and interethnic relations in the territory. "Tension is always raised before negotiations. The atmosphere in the whole of 2015 is bad, turmoil in Europe are large, social discontent prevails.

Hasim Thaci has "confirmed his visit to Belgrade to attend a conference on European integration of the Western Balkans due to take place from April 23 to 25." This was announced late on Thursday by the organizer, the Youth Education Committee NGO. The organization said that it invited ministers of foreign affairs of "Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo, representatives of the EU delegation in Serbia, embassy officials and expert public" to attend the gathering dubbed, "European integration of the Western Balkans: We can do better together." They will "discuss the cooperation b

Kosovo Foreign Minister and Deputy PM Hashim Thaci has accepted an invitation "to come to Belgrade" on April 24, his deputy has confirmed. According to Petrit Selimi, Thaci has provided "a preliminary positive reply." He added that "it is now the task for the Serbian authorities to guarantee his safe stay." Selimi also observed that "the Kosovo government and the police have been able to guarantee complete security to President Nikolic, Prime Minister Vucic and other top-ranked Serbian officials who visited Kosovo." Thaci was invited by the Youth Education Committee non-governmental organiz

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on Wednesday said that Serbia insists that the conditions for the start of its EU accession negotiations "must be clarified." "We are not saying we will be conducting a war with the European Union, but we need to make things clear.

Belgrade has fulfilled all its obligations in Kosovo and it is now up to Pristina to secure the legal order and an absence of violence, says Aleksandar Vulin. The Serbian labor minister told the Belgrade-based TV Pink broadcaster on Tuesday that the situation in Kosovo and Metohija was "complex," and that "everything that was done in the past two or three years was done with the idea of forming a community of Serb municipalities and strengthening the position of Serbs." "All our obligations have been fulfilled, we did absolutely everything our government signed, everything has been fulfilled

Ivica Dacic says it is "nothing new" that Serbia faces new and more difficult conditions every time it meets "a major requirement in moving closer to the EU." But the Serbian foreign minister also said on Wednesday he was misquoted in the media who published his alleged statement that 'even if we recognized Kosovo, we would not be accepted to the EU'." He "explained what he said in his interview with the Russian website Sputnik, and what the media singled ou

European Commission officials consider EU's reaction to Albanian PM Edi Rama's statements to be "very clear and unambiguous." This is what the Beta news agency was told on Thursday in Brussels when it asked for comment on Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's assessment that EU's reaction was lukewarm.

A 17-year-old Serb boy who was stabbed in the chest near the bridge on the Ibar River in Mitrovica is in a stable condition after he underwent surgery. Kosovska Mitrovica Heath Center Director Milan Ivanovic made the announcement on Thursday, but did not rule out complications due to the nature of the injuries, saying that his recovery was at the moment progressing as expected. At around 18:00 CET on Thursday, several unidentified persons crossed the bridge from the southern to the northern part of the town and attacked three Serb youths that happened to be there at the time. Two managed to