Dusan Janjic from the Forum for Ethnic Relations in Belgrade said that the demands that the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, presented on Friday as preconditions for "meaningful dialogue" will also help the mediators of the dialogue in the European Union, emissary Miroslav Lajčak and high representative, Josep Borrell. According to Janjiqi, Vuqiqi is counting a lot that the EU states will put pressure on Kosovo to accept the conditions.
Vucic has presented five measures that his country will undertake "after the recent tensions" in the north of Kosovo. In a conference for journalists, Vuçiqi, in addition to the measures, also revealed seven demands on the issue of the "problem of the Kosovo Serbs", as "necessary preconditions for significant progress in the dialogue". Among them, he listed it for announcing and holding "free and democratic local elections" in the north, with the participation of the mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and with the supervision of the European Union (EU). , that for the return of policemen and officials of the justice system to their workplaces, the formation of the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority, the withdrawal of special units of the Kosovo Police from the northern region, the immediate implementation of the "guarantees of the European Union and the United States from December 28, 2022, the immediate release of all political prisoners arrested by the Kosovo Police" and making payments to the north in the Serbian currency, dinar.
According to Janjiqi, this was setting the preconditions for future dialogue meetings. He said on KTV's "Interaktiv" that Vuçiqi will not participate in meetings in Brussels without the implementation of these requirements, but that there may be meetings at the level of chief negotiators.
He said that according to Vucic, there is an expectation that the EU will force Kosovo to implement the preconditions.
"According to Vučić, these preconditions will be strongly supported by the diplomatic activities of Serbia, thus expecting that the European Union will force the Government of Kosovo to implement these preconditions. But if we sum it up, his prerequisites are more for the return of Serbs to Kosovo's institutions and the organization of local elections in the north of Kosovo. And I don't know why this would be implemented, but for me a very serious question remains: Why didn't the Government of Kosovo ask for this earlier in the dialogue about the return of the Serbs? I think that Vuqiqi should ask for such things because of the internal opinion, because the opinion in Serbia would be against him if he did not ask for such a thing. And this was my prognosis for this point", Janjiq said. "However, Vuciqi is counting a lot on the EU states, on the European Commission, and he will tell these states that without the implementation of these seven points, he cannot do anything in Serbia to implement the other points important part of the dialogue".
According to Janjiqi, by setting the preconditions, Vuqiqi has offered help to the mediators after "showing that he has accepted the Brussels Agreement".
"These are really prerequisites and will be helpful for Lajcak and Borrell. Because with these conditions, Vuiçiqi is clearly showing that he has accepted the Brussels Agreement towards normalization and the Ohrid one. Because he said today that he is not against anything that is part of the Ohrid Agreement. But, as you know, for public opinion and his party, he will postpone this confession in the parliament and the next meeting in the parliament, according to Vucic, is scheduled in the next 45 days", he continued.
