The Washington John Hopkins University’s panel “Western Balkans (WB): Managing the Challenges” dealt with the regional leaders’ real readiness to get closer to the West, adding it should more clearly criticise the WB’s regimes, the Voice of America (VOA) reported on Thursday, as carried by the FoNet news agency.

On the occasion of the International Press Freedom Day, May 3, Association of Journalists of Serbia in Kosovo will organize a gathering in front of an art installation MISSING in Gracanica to point out to the unresolved murders and kidnappings, attacks and pressure against journalists and the media, KIM Radio reports.

The Association recalled that the pressure and attacks against journalists in Kosovo and Metohija continued over the last year.

Serbian Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija Director Marko Djuric said yesterday Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin’s statement that a delimitation between Serbs and Albanians should occur as soon as possible is not “an attack on Serbia’s Constitution,” KoSSev portal reports.

Djuric said Vulin had a courage to express his position, adding that everyone “within the internal dialogue“ has the right to say how the Kosovo issue should be resolved.

Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives, lower chamber of the US Congress on Tuesday evening organized a panel on war crimes in Kosovo during the conflict in 1998 and 1999, RTS reports.

The members of the panel were representatives of the Kosovo Albanians only, so the discussion was rather one-sided, RTS correspondent from Washington writes.

Brother and sister, Nikola (17) and Marija (15) Petrovic from Gracanica died along with their grandmother on May 1, two decades ago, when NATO bombed Nis-Express bus on the Pristina-Nis highway in Luzane, Serbian media in Kosovo report. The two teens and their grandmother were on their way back from Prokuplje to Gracanica. No one was hold responsible for this crime.

Office for Kosovo and Metohija Director Marko Djuric on Thursday "thanked the organizers of the summit in Berlin on behalf of the ruling party (SNS) and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic."

Speaking in a news conference in Belgrade Djuric said that Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel prepared the summit "in a very serious way and gave the opportunity to Vucic to present Serbia's position."

Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister and First Deputy PM Ivica Dacic said on Tuesday there can be no agreement with Pristina without Belgrade's consent. And Serbia will protect the interests of the people and the state, he told Prva TV a day after the meeting on Kosovo in Berlin, called by Germany and France.

"They can threaten us with anything, they can threaten us with whether or not we will join the EU, (but) there is the national, state interest. Just as our European path is important, it is important for us to protect the interests of the people and the state," Dacic underlined.

"Kosovo Albanian leaders Haradinaj and Thaci are under strong western influence, but Tirana is dictating the events with the goal of creating ‘Greater Albania’." Chairman of the Serbian National Assembly's Committee on Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun said this on Wednesday.

He told TV Pink everything that has been done so far, including the formation of KLA ("Kosovo Liberation Army"), had been done to allow Albania to forcefully seize the southern province of Serbia, Kosovo, and embark on the realization of the ‘Greater Albania’ project.

"Denis Zvizdic's saying that a change of borders means opening Pandora's box is meaningless and ridiculous," Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said. Instead, Dacic continued, recognitions of Kosovo opened Pandora's box - and now "no one is asking Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) how this issue will be resolved."

"We don't care what they think, who's asking them how the issue of Belgrade and Pristina will be resolved - who are they to give any opinion about it?," Dacic told reporters after laying a wreath on Slavija Square in Belgrade, to mark May 1, Labor Day in Serbia.

Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin said if the EU does not want Serbia in its ranks, "there are those who do." There are other alliances and other nations who want to cooperate as equals, Vulin added.

"We are not condemned to Europe. The EU is Serbia's strategic orientation, but not at the price of begging," Vulin told TV Pink on Thursday.