U.S. official in Belgrade for meetings with party leaders

Source: B92

BELGRADE -- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon European and Eurasian Affairs and his deputy Philip Reeker are visiting Serbia this week.

In Serbia because he likes Belgrade: Philip Reeker

As soon as he arrived here, Reeker headed for the United Regions of Serbia (URS) headquarters, where Ivica Dačić had just wrapped up his meeting with Mlađan Dinkić.
Asked by a B92 reporter why he took the trip to Serbia, he answered, "because I like Belgrade".

Tanjug is reporting that the U.S. embassy in Serbia said the visit was "part of Reeker's regular activities in the region".

His meeting with Dinkić lasted about an hour, but none of the participants were in the mood to talk to journalists afterwards.

Reeker also conferred with LDP, SPS, and SNS leaders Čedomir Jovanović, Ivica Dačić and Aleksandar Vučić, in separate meetings.

No statements were made for the press after any of the encounters.

The U.S. official is scheduled to stay in Serbia for three days, and will also meet with President of the Democratic Party Boris Tadić.

Philip Gordon is expected to arrive in Serbia later during the week.

A source told B92 earlier in the day that Reeker would arrive on Tuesday and was expected to meet with Ivica Dačić, who was last week given the mandate to put together Serbia's new government.

The U.S. official will also meet with leaders of all leading parties, according to this.

This will be the first visit of U.S. officials to Serbia since the May parliamentary and presidential elections, and it can be viewed as that country's increased interests in the developments concerning the forming of a government in Serbia.

B92 has also learned that Dačić attempted to have a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, but failed, as it was "agreed that he will first have to meet with high U.S. officials that will visit Belgrade".

This position deepened speculations that relations between Washington and the leader of the Socialists (SPS) are not as Dačić would wish them to be.

Suspicion that the U.S. does not look favorably at the possibility of Dačić as Serbia's prime minister were deepened after his visits to Russia, which allegedly showed interest in buying Serbia's large public companies that are yet to be privatized such as EPS and Telekom.

Additional doubts were raised after misunderstandings over Dačić's statements about a return of Serbia's security forces to northern Kosovo, while a scandal over the Gendarmerie oath was especially analyzed. The oath was authored by its commander Bratislav Dikić, who Dačić's trusted man in the police, and who is one of police officers that Washington did not look to favorably even before.

With interpretations of his statements and by condemning the Gendarmerie oath Dačić attempted to correct these omissions later.

The source also said that beside the American, some European diplomats had become more cautious when it comes to appointments of future advisers and ministers, some of which already made an effort to cause certain dilemmas and trepidation, while the media in Serbia published this type of information.

Fight against corruption and crime is one of the most important tasks ahead of the next government, while there have not been sufficient guarantees that this fight will be carried out in the best possible way, appraised the U.S. administration. It is expected that all these issues will be covered during the meetings in the coming days.

The B92 source added that it is certain that Washington's final stance will also influence their numerous European colleagues, and that it will become obvious very quickly how many of them will support a government coalition made up of SNS-SPS-URS.

Meanwhile, other media in Belgrade are reporting that the actual reason for the visits is that the U.S. does not want to see Ivica Dačić in the office of prime minister. Hillary Clinton therefore sent Reeker to lobby for a "grand coalition" between the Progressives (SNS) and the Democrats (DS).