US SAYS SERBIA MUST ACCEPT THE REALITY OF A SOVEREIGN KOSOVO
(AFP) – 3 hours ago
PRISTINA — A senior US official on Monday told Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic that Belgrade must accept "the reality of a democratic and sovereign Kosovo".
"I repeated in Belgrade what I repeat here: which is that ultimately Serbia needs to come to terms with the reality of a democratic and sovereign Kosovo," US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon, told reporters here after meeting Kosovo president Atifete Jahjaga.
Earlier in the day Gordon met with Serbia's leader Nikolic in Belgrade but he did not speak to reporters there.
"We hope that Serbia remains on course towards European Union membership but that ... requires initially to normalise its relations with Kosovo," Gordon said in Pristina.
He added that the US expected Belgrade to continue with its involvement in the EU-brokered dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.
A statement from Nikolic's office after the meeting in Belgrade only said that the newly elected Serb president denounced recent "violence" against Serbs in Kosovo as "unacceptable".
This weekend a Kosovo Serb couple was found shot dead by unknown gunmen in their house in Talinovic in south-eastern Kosovo.
Some 120,000 Serbs live in Kosovo out of a population of 2 million. Kosovo Serbs, like Belgrade, do not accept Kosovo's 2008 unilateral declaration of independence, recognised by more than 90 countries, including the United States and all but five EU members.
In a separate development Nikolic also met with the leader of the influential Serb Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej, on Monday.
"I spoke with the patriarch about the Kosovo question and he said we need a consensus" of the political forces in parliament on how to proceed, Nikolic told journalists.
If he gets such a consensus, Nikolic said he was ready to restart the dialogue with Pristina which has been on hold since before the May 6 general elections here.
Improving relations with Pristina is a key condition for Belgrade to obtain a date for opening accession talks with the European Union after becoming a candidate member in March.
Belgrade and Pristina have been meeting in EU-brokered talks since March 2011 to try to resolve some of the issues stemming from Serbia's refusal to recognise Kosovo's declaration of independence.
Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved
