Chollet in Balkans next week, visits all countries in the region except Albania

Chollet will stay in Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Macedonia, Montenegro and Croatia.

The visit highlights the US's stable commitment to peace, stability and prosperity of the region”, the US State Department's announcement said.

On 12-13 December, Chollet will stay in Pristina, Kosovo, where she will meet with government officials and other political leaders to discuss continued co-operation on a range of issues, including US efforts to advance Kosovo's integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structures, the EU-launched dialogue to reach a comprehensive agreement on normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia, with mutual recognition at the centre, the announcement emphasises.

He is also expected to seek to postpone extraordinary elections in four municipalities in the north.

Before coming to Pristina, Chollet said elections for municipal power in Kosovo's Serb-run north should be postponed and that he will discuss the matter with Kosovo leaders during his visit to Pristina next week.

In an interview with Voice of America, Chollet said that the United States thinks that “is not the right time for elections given the sensitivity of the moment and we have seen violence in the last 24 hours. It's tense time and we want to make sure there are conditions to hold free and fair elections. Kosovo is a multiethnic democracy, like the United States. We are proud of the work the United States has done in these 20 years to establish democracy in Kosovo and want to work to support and preserve it. From this point on, we feel that these choices should be postponed until the time is right and when it can be held without further insistence and violence”.

During his visit to Pristina, Chollet is expected to be accompanied by US envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar.