Serbia beneath Western stress to succeed in deal on Kosovo, Vucic says | Politics Information

Serbian president says Belgrade might face worldwide isolation if it rejects a Western plan to normalise ties with Pristina.

Serbia has been given an ultimatum from highly effective Western nations to normalise ties with Kosovo or face measures that may do “nice harm” to the nation, the president has mentioned.

On Monday night, President Aleksandar Vucic mentioned he had been offered with a proposal, as a part of a Western push to unravel long-simmering tensions with Kosovo, throughout a gathering final week with representatives of the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, and the USA.

“[They] mentioned – you could settle for this plan, or you’ll face the interruption of the method of European integration, the halting and withdrawal of investments and complete financial and political measures that can trigger nice harm to the Republic of Serbia,” Vucic mentioned.

Talking throughout a televised press convention, Vucic mentioned Serbia’s parliament must talk about the proposal, and hinted at a attainable referendum. He underlined that with out the EU, Serbia would turn out to be “remoted”.

The brand new Western plan for normalising Serbia-Kosovo relations has not been formally made public. Vucic mentioned in his televised tackle that the plan stipulates that Serbia wouldn’t object to Kosovo’s membership in worldwide organisations, together with the United Nations.

The US and EU wish to push ahead an EU-mediated dialogue that has been stalled for months as a result of they concern Russia, a Serbia ally, might attempt to stir instability within the Balkans to divert consideration from the warfare in Ukraine.

“These talks had been among the many hardest previously decade,” Vucic added, describing the assembly. “It was by no means like this.”

EU overseas coverage chief Josep Borrell mentioned Monday that the conferences in Kosovo and Serbia had centered on “discussions on the proposal on normalisation of relations. We pressured that advancing on this proposal would deliver appreciable advantages for either side”.

Serbia has been a candidate to hitch the EU for greater than a decade, and normalising ties with Kosovo has been a key situation to advance its utility.

“Serbia should stay on its EU path … as a result of we might be misplaced with out it, economically and politically. If we had been to be alone and remoted, that isn’t one thing I might settle for as a president,” Vucic mentioned.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, after a bloody warfare within the late Nineteen Nineties between an ethnic Albanian armed rebellion and Serbian forces ended with a NATO intervention that compelled Serbia to drag out of the territory.

Belgrade and its key allies Russia and China refused to recognise the transfer, successfully denying Pristina a seat on the UN.

Vucic beforehand mentioned Serbia would by no means recognise the independence of Kosovo, which many Serbs think about the nation’s historic heartland, and the dispute between Serbia and Kosovo has remained a source of instability within the Balkans.

Final month, Western officers mediated in resolving a tense situation in northern Kosovo, the place Serbs erected barricades on the principle roads to protest the arrest of a former Serb police officer. Within the newest incident, Serb officers mentioned Kosovo police wounded a Serb man on Monday within the Serb-dominated north of the nation.

Serbia has typically drifted from Brussels’ overseas coverage line, most just lately when Belgrade refused to sanction Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, it has condemned Moscow’s aggression on the UN.

Vucic mentioned he believes that the stress to resolve the Kosovo subject is a results of “modified geopolitical circumstances”.

“They [the West] have their very own agenda, which is Russia’s defeat, and the whole lot that stands in the best way of that agenda shall be crushed,” Vucic mentioned.

“Europe is de-facto in warfare, no matter they could say,” mentioned Vucic. “They [EU] need the whole lot of their again yard – and Balkans is their again yard – to be the best way they need it.”