"Ashton promised Serbia will get EU talks date”

SOURCE: BETA

BELGRADE -- PM Ivica Dačić says he has received assurances from EU's Catherine Ashton that Serbia will get a date for the start of the EU accession talks.

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Catherine Ashton and Ivica Dačić (EU)

Catherine Ashton and Ivica Dačić (EU)
“I asked EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton if Serbia will get a date. Her answer was yes. Ashton said ‘a date goes without saying’,” he told daily Blic.

However, the prime minister said that the date was not a reward for an agreement that was reached by Belgrade and Priština in Brussels.

“Nobody accepted conditions that are not a sufficient guarantee. And when we rejected the agreement, the date was not a priority, it is not now that the agreement is initialed but now it contains what the Serbian side requested,” he explained.

Dačić reiterated that Serbia had not recognized Kosovo by reaching an agreement with Priština.

“Negotiations on Kosovo continue. We have several successful things behind us – we have for the first time received guarantees that some future Kosovo army cannot set a foot in northern Kosovo, that the police and judiciary will consist of Serbs and that the Serbian side will propose three candidates for a regional police commander. The international community was on our side for the first time and this should be a new era in Serbia’s relations with the West,” he was quoted as saying.

Dačić and Kosovo PM Hashim Thaci initialed the 15-point agreement in Brussels on Friday.