“Serbia ready to continue talks, won’t recognize Kosovo”

Source: Beta, Tanjug

BELGRADE -- EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule has confirmed that there are no new conditions for Serbia’s EU accession.

Stefan Fule and Ivica Dačić (Tanjug)

Serbia’s Prime Minister Ivica Dačić has said that Belgrade is ready to continue the dialogue with Priština but that it will not recognize Kosovo’s independence.
Fule and Dačić met in Belgrade on Thursday.

“Commissioner Fule informed me that there are no new conditions for the continuation of the dialogue and that the dialogue, if Serbia participates in it, will be status neutral,” the Serbian official said after the meeting.

Commenting on the mentioning of Kosovo’s territorial integrity in a document dubbed Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2012-2013, Dačić said that it was important for Serbia to see whether there were any new conditions in the EU integration process and whether it was necessary for Serbia to recognize Kosovo’s independence in some way.

“The answer is that there are no new conditions, that those are conditions of the European Council that clearly say that a visible and sustainable improvement of relations between Belgrade and Priština is necessary and that is not disputable for us. The sentence about Kosovo’s territorial integrity was disputable for us, bearing in mind that it could lead to a conclusion that there are new conditions. And that is unacceptable for us,” the prime minister stressed.

He explained that Serbia was ready to continue the dialogue with Priština if there were no new conditions, which was confirmed by Fule today.

Dačić stressed that Serbia believed that it was better to solve problems at the negotiating table than to make unilateral moves.

He added that Serbia wanted to peacefully resolve all conflicts, continue the technical talks, implement agreements and to hold the political dialogue at the highest possible level.

The PM said that Serbia would not accept new conditions.

“Our goal is to get a date for the talks as soon as possible and we are aware that this will not happen in December,” Dačić said and added that the government’s goal is to get the date next year.

“We are ready for a dialogue with the EU but I expect the European Commission (EC) to have enough understanding for Serbia’s specific problems, more specific than other countries do, such as Kosovo. Serbia cannot accept conditions that would mean recognition of Kosovo,” he noted.

The PM said that he expected the dialogue to continue but that it was a team effort and that Serbia was ready to accept the challenges.

Fule said that the controversial formulation “Kosovo’s territorial integrity” referred to the fact that the EU did not want the partition of Kosovo and that it did not have anything to do with Kosovo’s status.

The enlargement commissioner presented the annual EC report on Serbia’s progress in Brussels on Wednesday. As expected the EC did not recommend that Serbia be given a date for the beginning of the accession talks.

Dačić said on Wednesday that a request that Serbia should respect Kosovo’s territorial integritycould jeopardize the Belgrade-Priština dialogue.