"Serbia has no new policy on Kosovo"
Replying to reporters' question as to the statement by the head of Serbia's negotiating team Borko Stefanovic regarding division of Kosovo, the Serbian prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic said that what Stefanovic actually said was that all the matters opened in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue could be a topic of the talks.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Thursday, April 28, 2011
Serbian PM Mirko Cvetkovic and members of his cabinet are answering questions related to the state policy on Kosovo, with the proposal filed by the opposition Serb Radical Party (SRS). The focus is expected to be on the results thus far of the several rounds of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.
"What we have here is not some new policy the country is to assume on this issue, it was simply that such a question was put to Stefanovic," he said in the parliament.
Head of Serbia's negotiation team Borislav Stefanovic addressed the issue of Kosovo to say that the goal of the Belgrade-Pristina talks is not and will not be the recognition of Kosovo.
Stefanovic said that Serbia's negotiation team fully abides by the Serbian Constitution and the parliament's resolutions, which clearly state that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia.
"It has to be made clear that we do not want to, that we cannot and that we do not wish to recognize (Kosovo's) independence, and that this is not the goal of the negotiations. The negotiations are aimed at resolving the problems of the people there," Stefanovic stressed, underlining that neither the Serbian government, nor the negotiation team have the intention of crossing that line.
He added that Serbia views the talks as a process in which solutions should be sought for concrete issues, all of which, in some way or other, also include the issue of status that Belgrade and Pristina have diametrically opposed stands on.
Stefanovic also noted that the Serbian side is willing to discuss all issues, which does not mean that it is ready to violate the Serbian Constitution in doing that.
The SRS MPs criticized Serbian President Boris Tadic for not being present at the session, underlining that he is the most competent person to answer the question why Serbia decided to negotiate with the representatives of Kosovo's Albanians in the first place and why it gave up on the issue of status, "thus entering the slippery road towards recognizing the illegitimate independence of Kosovo".
