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Serbia expects negotiations on Kosovo to continue following December 10

Belgrade, 3 December 2007

Members of the Serbian negotiating team, Minister for Kosovo-Metohija Slobodan Samardzic and Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremic, stated that Belgrade informed the Contact Group’s troika today on its stand that negotiations on the Kosovo-Metohija status should not be ended with the report to be presented on December 10.

Slobodan Samardzic

At a press conference following the meeting of the state negotiating team with the troika members, Samardzic said that US representative in the troika Frank Wisner presented the structure of the report in which facts relevant to the negotiating process will be recorded.

This is important for us because Serbia gave concrete proposals and was constructive, said Samardzic and reiterated that Belgrade considers that the negotiating process does not end with the report, but rather that it means that only a phase, more successful than the one led by Martti Ahtisaari, has come to an end.

Jeremic specified that the process will now be transferred to the UN Security Council and that Belgrade has asked the troika to take part in the debate in that body.

The Serbian President and Prime Minister once again underlined that according to Serbia, any unilateral move will have unforeseeable consequences on peace and stability in the region, stressed Jeremic and called upon the international community not to encourage such behaviour.

Vuk Jeremic

Jeremic announced that he is leaving for London tomorrow where he will meet with the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and will then travel to New York to meet with UN Secretary General and ambassadors of all UN Security Council member countries prior to the forthcoming debate at the Security Council on the troika of envoys’ report on talks between Belgrade and Pristina scheduled for December 19.

We will not just sit and do nothing, we are continuing with agile diplomatic activities. I will inform my collocutors at East River on all the things Belgrade has offered within the negotiations, tell them what on Serbia’s stance is, where the flexibility is, what we are ready to do and finally point out that the process must not be interrupted by imposing any solutions, stressed Jeremic.

The Minister explained that Belgrade is convinced that the prevailing stance in the Security Council will be to continue the process since Resolution 1244 has not been fulfilled and that only this Resolution can regulate the negotiating process, as well as that the status dialogue should and must be continued.

Speaking about today’s meeting with the troika, Jeremic stressed that an important period of the negotiating process has ended, but added that Serbia believes that once the troika’s mandate expires on December 10, this process will resume at the UN Security Council.

He also said that the EU mission should arrive to Kosovo-Metohija as soon as possible, though it must be established by a UN Security Council resolution.

We firmly believe that there is only one valid interpretation of Resolution 1244 and it does not allow an alteration of the type and form of international presence in the province, explained Jeremic and added that Kosovo-Metohija needs a solution enabling peace and stability in the Western Balkans.

According to him, an integral part of such a solution must be institutional presence of the EU in the province, though the legitimacy of the process must not be breached at any point whatsoever.

Should that transpire, I believe that such a move will have extremely detrimental consequences to trust, peace and stability, emphasised the Minister and added that Belgrade believes there are better, clearer and more legitimate ways to set up an EU mission, and that is through the Security Council.

Jeremic maintained that Serbia has faith in the European future of the Balkan and believes that the EU should improve the current state of the peace mission.