US Secretary of State to visit Belgrade on 12 October
Clinton opposes talks on Kosovo status N. M. Jovanovic | 27. 09. 2010. - 00:02h | Foto: AFP | Komentara: 0 <http://english.blic.rs/News/6914/Clinton-opposes-talks-on-Kosovo-status/komentari> The United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, should visit Belgrade on 12 October during her diplomatic tour of the region, Blic has learned. On the occasion, the two topics to be addressed during the visit will be the Kosovo talks and Serbia’s route to gaining membership into the European Union. It should be expected Clinton will be interested in the sequence of these issues to be addressed as the USA do not recognise renewed talks on the status, as Blic has learned from diplomatic sources. The US Secretary of State is to meet Serbia president Boris Tadic and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vuk Jeremic. She is scheduled to meet the latter during daytime, while there should be a dinner party organised with Tadic later that evening at the Presidential Office. Serbia president Boris Tadic has announced US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be visiting Belgrade in October of this year. Commenting on his meeting with US president Barack Obama during the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Tadic said for The Voice of America it had been a “brief protocol conversation” and there could not be classified as bilateral talks. He announced he would soon be visiting the USA and that it would present a good opportunity for the two sides to exchange views at the highest level and to raise the level of the US-Serbian relations to the highest possible point. He further explained there could be no peace, stability and development of the region without Serbia and that the country played an active and prominent role in the struggle against organised crime and that it took an active part in all international forums. “I reiterated that Serbia neither recognised nor that it will ever recognise the independence of Kosovo and I reiterated our position on the understanding of the opinion of the International Court of Justice. We are in realistic circumstances searching for a solution that should bring to a compromise and a solution sustainable for a longer period to come. It would imply peace, a peaceful process, as well as economic development, so that neither the economy nor the market are blocked in the region of western Balkans,” Tadic said and added the essence of the entire political process after the ICJ’s opinion that Serbia was still on the right European route. Predrag Simic, a professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science, believes it would be extremely important to reach an agreement with the USA, especially when it comes to further European integrations as “out of the 27 member nations of the EU, the USA is the most important one – the 28th one”. - “I expect to see Boris Tadic soon in the company of Barack Obama and that after two years we will have a significant improvement of relations between the US and Serbia, which could then encourage even more restrained statements from Russian diplomats,” Simic said for Blic. During last year’s visit to Belgrade by US vice-president Joseph Biden there were 5,000 personnel engaged in ensuring the safety and security during the visit. Once Biden’s Boeing 757 entered Serbia’s air space, it was joined and from then on accompanied by Serbian MIG fighter planes, while the entire air traffic was abandoned for whole two hours. Biden was escorted by 350 US security officers. On the day of the visit all public gatherings were prohibited, while there were sharp shooters positioned on rooftops. http://english.blic.rs/News/6914/Clinton-opposes-talks-on-Kosovo-status _______________________________________________ News mailing list News@antic.org http://lists.antic.org/mailman/listinfo/news
