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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Status dialogue on Kosovo must be continued

Belgrade, 18 December 2007

Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremic said that Serbia's message at the United Nation's headquarters, where the Security Council (SC) will tomorrow discuss the issue of Kosovo-Metohija, will be that we are satisfied with the fact that negotiations on Kosovo were conducted in direct form because only that way a compromise solution can be found.

File photo of Vuk Jeremic

Author: Tanjug

Jeremic said in an interview to daily Vecernje Novosti before leaving for New York, that Serbia laments that no such solution was found and that is why the status dialogue must be continued. He underlined that Serbia is ready for that because only continued peaceful dialogue can lead to a sustainable solution that will enable peaceful development of the region and prosperity for all citizens.

The Serbian government's official website brings excerpts form the interview.

How to create climate for real negotiations?

– Belgrade entered each round of negotiations with maximum seriousness and saw it as an opportunity to negotiate, but unfortunately it did not have a constructive collocutor. The mediating troika tried to enable true negotiations, but the Albanian side always obstructed their efforts. Since the process led by the troika did not yield a compromise solution, we hope that the international community will opt for the new phase of the status dialogue, where Albanians would be obliged to negotiate, and not only state their ultimate stance on independence.

How much is there really hope for negotiations to be continued?

– It is not up to us to speculate what the chances are. Our task is to stick to our principles, present our arguments and put our maximum diplomatic efforts to secure the continuation of negotiations. For us there is no alternative to continuation of the status dialogue.

On the UN Security Council's decision to hold the session behind the closed doors:

– That shows that the Kosovo problem is taken very seriously. All SC member states agreed that the session should be held behind closed doors.

Will the session end with a concrete conclusion?

– I couldn't guess that much. At this moment there are very opposite opinions in the SC so it would surprise me if a conclusion was reached at this session. It is more likely that something like that could happen after the extended debate in the SC. I would like the conclusion to be that the negotiations held so far did not bring results and that therefore it is necessary to continue dialogue, but I think that at this moment the SC is not even close to such a conclusion and that is why we can expect that this will not be the last session on this topic.

What was the message to Serbian ambassadors at the First conference of Serbian ambassadors?

– That was the first ambassador conference in the history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the diplomats learned about the current state policy. That is practice in every normal state and we believe that it will become tradition here as well. But the moment at which we met is of special importance, the complex situation for the preservation of state sovereignty and further European integration. In the next days ambassadors will have briefings in the Ministry so when they return to their host countries they will have much clearer ideas on how to act in the times that come.