Thursday, August 2, 2018

UK leaves Kosovo out of UN agenda; while Russia and China...

(Getty Images, file, illustration purposes)SManalysis

The UK, which in August holds the presidency over the UN Security Council, did not put Kosovo on the agenda of that UN body.

SOURCE: B92, TANJUG, PRVA TV THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 2018 | 09:40

However, the UK will continue consultations to reach an agreement, as Russia and China firmly demand that the UN Security Council session on Kosovo be held in August.

This has been confirmed by Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, who spoke for Prva TV.

"They did not include it (Kosovo) in the program of work, but they will say that the consultations are continuing with the goal of reaching an agreement, because Russia and China firmly demand that the session on Kosovo be held in August. So there will be more conversation," he said.

Dacic assessed that the omission of Kosovo from the agenda of the UN Security Council session represents a big precedent.

As he said, there are no justified reasons for this, and nobody can throw the Kosovo topic out of the Security Council agenda.

Dacic told Tanjug that "if the UK does not want to, countries that have not recognized Kosovo will put it on the agenda."

The head of Serbian diplomacy noted that for the first time in 10 years, one country has decided independently not to include the topic of Kosovo on the agenda of the Security Council.

"Long, complicated and difficult consultations were conducted, within the SC, a delegation from Serbia was invited, but the United Kingdom simply does not want this subject to be discussed in the SC," Dacic said.

According to him, the UK is demanding that Kosovo be spoken about in closed sessions - without the presence of Pristina and Belgrade - and that these should be reduced to twice a year, because they considers that the situation in Kosovo is good and that there is no need to discuss it.

On the other hand, Dacic said, Russia and China firmly advocate that the topic must be at the Security Council sessions, as no agreement has been reached in the UN body to date.

"In order to avoid voting and creating big large divisions inside the Council, the meeting agreed - regardless of Britain submitting a work plan for August without the topic of Kosovo - that consultations on this topic will continue in the coming days with the interested parties, with the desire to reach an agreement on the further work," the minister said and expressed his expectation that Serbia's position will be taken into account.

He says it is unclear why the UK insists on leaving Kosovo out of the agenda of Security Council sessions, especially as, he said, they const

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