Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Thursday that Belgrade should employ lobbyists to defend the country’s interests in solving the Kosovo issue.

He has told the Blic daily 173 countries have already signed lobbyist contracts with the American agencies and it is clear that, in the modern time, states function in that way.

“The aim should be to get access to the decision-making people, i.e., to the US President Donald Trump, to secure their support for a permanent solution to the issue of Kosovo,” Dacic said.

"Sustainable and operable solution, both in political and economic terms, which would not initiate new displacement, forced migration and the opening of new hotbeds of national and political conflicts, is the one in which national homogeneous territories would be exchanged, that is, territories with the dominant participation of the Albanian population on the side of the Republic of Serbia and vice versa, in the territory of Kosovo with the dominant participation of citizens of Serbian (and non-Albanian) nationality in the total number of inhabitants of the obse

Diplomatic sources of Danas and international relations experts do not exclude completely the possibility of Serbia changing the foreign policy course, but they assess that Belgrade will endeavour in maintaining the current position of balancing between the West and Russia.

According to interlocutors of Danas, any changes in foreign policy will depend largely on the next phase of resolving the Kosovo issue.

In closing statements at the high-profile trial in Kosovo, the defence insisted that the kidney transplants at the Medicus clinic had no connection to people-trafficking as the indictment claims.

In its closing statements on Tuesday, the defence told Pristina Basic Court that the prosecution could not prove that the Medicus clinic owner, Lutfi Dervishi, was involved in organised crime in connection with people-trafficking.

The six Turkish nationals forcefully removed from Kosovo in March were deported through a misrepresented commercial flight, the Civil Aviation Authority confirmed today.

The airline company, whose plane carried the six Turkish nationals who were forcefully removed from Kosovo to Turkey in March, misrepresented its flight’s purpose.

Coordinator of Missing and Kidnapped Persons Families in Kosovo, Milorad Trifunovic told Radio kontakt plus destiny of 1654 persons still remains unknown, while 562 persons belong to the Serb and non-Albanian ethnicities.

Trifunovic, whose brother was kidnapped in 1998, told the radio that any hope is lost some of the missing and kidnapped persons could be still alive.

Serbia and the Western Balkans have a clear European perspective and France will continue its support to the regional European path, Franch official has said on Tuesday.

Jean Bizet, a member of the Senat of France, also said that it was necessary for Belgrade and Pristina to continue the dialogue and, with the EU stronger support, to find a solution acceptable to both sides.

The climate has changed in Europe, the situation in the world has never been this complicated, not even before the First World War, says Aleksandar Vucic.

The Serbian president in this way commented on rigid Dutch and French stance regarding EU candidate countries opening new accession negotiation chapters in June, and Serbia's position and chances in that context.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Tuesday that there is pressure on Serbia to reach an agreement with Pristina this or next year.

However, he said, Belgrade will not barter in terms of Kosovo and Metohija "for the sake of EU membership deadlines."

Dacic told RTS that countries that recognized the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo are wrong when they claim that the process is irreversible.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday that he "does not think that key political decisions should be made by the Church."

Vucic also rejected the assessment that the state behaves as if the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) was "guilty for the issue of Kosovo and Metohija."

"The Church should not make key political decisions, and it certainly has the right to express its opinion," the president said when asked to comment on daily Blic reporting that "the state blames only the Church for Kosovo."