"Officials can campaign only in northern Kosovo"

Source: Danas

BELGRADE -- The procedure for Serbian government officials to enter Kosovo remains almost unchanged, writes the Belgrade-based daily Danas.

(Tanjug, file)

Belgrade, Priština and Brussels agreed during the government of Mirko Cvetković that Serbian officials would sent their requests through EU's offices in Belgrade, and in Priština, to the government there, whose decision would come back the same route.
The novelty is that Priština "will be assisted by EULEX in making its evaluation," the newspaper said it learned unofficially from diplomatic circles in Brussels.

This is the "mechanism" that was agreed in Brussels late on Monday by Ivica Dačić and Hashim Thaci, who were meeting with EU's Catherine Ashton.

The same sources said that Serbian officials who wish to go Kosovo now have to determine whether they are going as civil servants or as representatives of political parties.

The newspaper said it was told that they will be able to visit "only monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church" south of the Ibar - "provided they do not make political statements, but there is speculation that Priština in this regard will not be exclusive."

But there will be no restrictions in northern Kosovo, where Brussels and the Kosovo authorities wish to have a high Serb turnout in the municipal elections on November 3 - there, the article says, "whoever wants to can go any time."

The "mechanism" could create the conditions for First Deputy PM Aleksandar Vučić, as president of the SNS party, to travel to Kosovo during the campaign, diplomats in Priština have speculated.

According to the original plan of Belgrade, Vučić should go to Leposavić on October 23, and President Tomislav Nikolic to Gračanica on October 10.

Nikolić's adviser Marko Đurić, who took part in the talks in Brussels on Monday, would not comment on the report nor specify whether and when Nikolić and Vučić would go to Kosovo.

He stated that "the public will be notified in time" and that he "could not speak about the specific details of the mechanism for the visits," because the negotiators wish to avoid the impression of there being "winners and losers."

According Đurić, the mechanism will operate in accordance with the Brussels agreement on free movement and the current protocol.

Đurić also denied the speculation heard from diplomats that Belgrade was under pressure "from the international community" to remove Aleksandar Vulin "from the Kosovo process."

According to the newspaper's sources, PM Ivica Dačić was allegedly trying to "persuade the West that Vulin was working behind his back in Kosovo."

The daily also reported that "diplomatic circles are saying that Brussels, in order for as many Serbs as possible to turn out for the local Kosovo elections, is tolerating Belgrade making its own election list, but not the war against all other Serb options.