“State to focus on community of Serb municipalities”

Source: Beta, RTS

BELGRADE -- Marko Đurić says top officials have agreed to put the forming of a community of autonomous Serb municipalities in the center of their policy in Kosovo talks.

(Tanjug, file)

The Serbian president’s advisor told Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) that all modalities for negotiations were already prepared.
“Serbia has a full mandate to conduct the negotiations and to advocate requests presented in the platform and resolution adopted by parliament, which provide enough room to reach a compromise,” Đurić explained.

He said that it was time to determine the topics that would be discussed in the continuation of the dialogue and to reach an agreement on how the platform would be interpreted by the Belgrade negotiating team.

“The resolution and platform are unambiguous in that sense. The moment a solution in the political dialogue is reached, a constitutional law on the implementation of the Constitution should be adopted which would give certain authorities to the autonomous province,” Đurić noted.

He added that the community of autonomous municipalities would have its assembly and an executive council that would govern internal issues, judiciary and other areas that are important not only for Serb community but for other communities in Kosovo as well.

“With this we will guarantee preservation of our constitutional and legal position and leave room to Priština to preserve its political and legal fiction about its current status,” Đurić explained.

He stressed that Serbia was creating a “functional political atmosphere” in which it would be possible to say that both sides had achieved a minimum of their interests.

Commenting on a possibility of getting a date for the beginning of the EU accession talks, the presidential advisor said that Serbia had made crucial steps forward in the previous several months.

“I think we have the full right to say that Serbia demands and expects to get a positive signal in the continuation of the European integration. We demand and expect to get the beginning of the negotiations,” Đurić concluded.

Top state officials had a meeting in Belgrade on Wednesday afternoon and one of the main topics was Kosovo and the continuation of the dialogue in Brussels.