Continuation of Belgrade-Pristina dialog in Brussels

The latest round of the Belgrade-Pristina dialog should be continued in Brussels on Tuesday, with talks on administrative line crossing in northern Kosovo.

On the first day of the new round of talks yesterday, Belgrade and Pristina reached an agreement on recognizing university diplomas, while the issue of Pristina's representation at regional meetings saw some progress but not exactly an agreement, Belgrade's lead negotiator Borislav Stefanovic told after the talks last night.

He said the issue of administrative crossing, as a major stumbling block in the talks, had been left a topic for today's discussion.

"Priatina still insists on symbols that would confirm their statehood and this will make reaching an agreement very difficult. The administrative line will never be a country border for us, and they insist on it being exactly that," Stefanovic said.

Summing up the first part of the talks' new round, the head of Belgrade's team said they had been "quite difficult."

Stefanovic said ahead of the meeting that it is not realistic to expect an agreement on the administrative crossings at the moment, or on telecommunications, and called on the EU to strengthen their efforts in order for Pristina to accept a compromise.

"We came here with several proposals about how to resolve the issue of crossings, but Pristina insists that symbols confirming their statehood are displayed, which is unacceptable for us," Stefanovic said.

"We will continue the talks, but at this point it would be unrealistic to expect an agreement," he noted.

Ahead of the beginning of yesterday's meeting, Pristina's lead negotiator Edita Tahiri said she hoped the two sides would approach the dialog in a constructive way and make some progress.