Daciqi even dreams in 2023: This year's main priorities, attracting Kosovo recognitions

Serbia is moving much faster on its reforms than the number of open and closed chapters indicates.

So said Ivica Dacic, chief of Serbian diplomacy, in an interview for the Serbian news agency “Beta”.

He said it is clear that the EU measures Serbia's path towards EU membership with the success of dialogue with Kosovo.

Serbia can progress in reforms as much as it wants, but if there is no progress in dialogue with Pristina, there will be no progress in European integrations either. However, even if a specific agreement with Pristina was reached, no one from the EU is able to tell us what we would get”, he said.

Speaking of Kosovo, and if the withdrawal of the Serbian List from Kosovo institutions caused the Brussels agreement to no longer be valid, Daciqi said Kosovo “has not respected the agreement for 10 years, because it has never implemented its only obligation to form the” Ministry of Serbian Majority.

Over Albin Kurti's mandate, the Brussels Agreement has been violated indefinitely. As of March, when the head of the Constitutional Court in Mitrovica, Ljiljana Stevanovovic, was dismissed by his order, and when Serbs were threatened with the seizure of license plates and ID cards in the fall, and especially with the recent dismissal of police chiefs in Serbian spaces. During all this time, violence is under way against Serbs in northern Kosovo, Kurti police betting without anyone's permission, arresting innocents, confiscating their property, pressure is unbearable”, he said, broadcast Klanosova.tv.

He added that the Serb departure from Kosovo institutions was forced due to the impatient <x0pression, terror and continuing violation of all agreements reached, including the Brussels Agreement”.

Asked whether with this experience in negotiations with Pristina would sign an agreement on the integration of the Serb community, as well as Serbian institutions and companies in the Kosovo system, Dacic said even before the signing of the Brussels Agreement, conditions for the Serb community's survival were not much better.

The continued pressure on the Serb community is constant in Pristina politics, regardless of who is in power there. With Pristina, with EU mediation and guarantees, we reached an agreement, confident that we can start resolving open problems and, above all, offer guarantees for the peaceful life of Serbs in Kosovo”, he said, adding: “None of us were under illusion that the Brussels Agreement would bring a peaceful life to Serbs in Kosovo overnight, nor would it solve all problems. But we had to start from around”.

No reasonable man, he added, could expect that after 10 years somebody in Pristina would decide on escalation and open pressure, “sic is making Kurti”.

“What Kurt is doing is his desperate attempt to destroy everything that has been built with effort so far and to bring the situation back in 2008, when they were convinced that their so-called independence was a work done”, Dachchi stressed.

Asked whether it comes to forming the Association under the Kosovo Constitution, will Serbia retain jurisdiction over health, education and cultural institutions in Serbian municipalities in Kosovo, Daciqi said association should be formed as defined by the Brussels Agreement.

“and envisions competence in areas that you mentioned and also in economic development, urbanism and rural development”, he explained.

Asked what are the biggest mistakes the authorities have made in Belgrade in the last 10 years for resolving the Kosovo issue, Dacic said there have been no mistakes or wrong decisions during that period.

This happened earlier in some important situations. But I think we have once trusted many guarantees of international mediators that they may influence Pristina to implement the agreement. We thought we had to deal with responsible governments of major European countries, but in the past the most common cheers came from them for Pristina and against Belgrade. For example, no one can convince me that Ramush Haradinaj alone, without anyone's support, could hold wild sanctions on goods from Serbia for a year and a half. And for that one and a half year our dialogue stopped”, the Serbian minister said.

When Kurt came to power, he added, he was a star among European politicians and media that he was a fighter against corruption, a young face unspotted by war, a reformist, a left.

And what we've been talking about since the first day, that he's an ordiner chauvinist who wants to expel Serbs from Kosovo”, Daciqi said, to add: “Let's explain that European policy star why does the Serbian patriarch's arrival at the Serbian monastery stop him from serving Christmas liturgy? Such a thing has never happened in the world, nor has it been during the 148x3 wars.

Asked to comment on President Aleksandar Vuciq's statement that, when it comes to the Kosovo issue, Serbia is in the position of “miu on the corner”, Dacic said it is not polite to interpret the president's statements.

But the association is clear to all of you that you don't put anyone in the corner, you'll have to protect yourself and you'll be thrown over your head”, he said, to add that Serbs in Kosovo “got into the corner, Kurti forced them to defend themselves with all force, and therefore they have all of Serbia's support”.

“They left Kosovo institutions because they cannot be in them until open violence is under way against their fellow countrymen”, Serbia Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dacic said.

On the Kosovo issue, Dacic also spoke in an interview for Montenegrin media.

For “Adria TV”, he said Serbia has never expected Montenegro to recognise Kosovo and that such a decision burdens relations between the two countries.

We didn't expect Montenegro would ever make such a decision, but it did, though the decision was taken by another majority and another government. But despite the changes, this decision is still in force. It is up to Montenegro to decide on this, but what is clear is that the fact that Montenegro recognises Kosovo's independence will always burden our relations, which we all in Serbia want to be closer and unhindered by no problems”, Dachqi said.

Dacic then referred to the current situation in Kosovo.

“President Vuciq no doubt deserves the greatest credit for the despassing of the crisis in northern Kosovo, which authorities brought to Pristina and Albin Kurti. It was an extremely difficult process, accompanied by unprecedented pressure and blackmail, and all of this under circumstances when Pristina troops with long barrels, can at any time attack our fellow countrymen in northern Kosovo to drive and invade that area with weapons. That was Pristina's goal. Thanks to the great effort, largely to President Vuciq, Serbia won, our people are protected and this is the most important”, Dacic says.

He has also spoken of Serbian television “Prva”, where he has touched on the issue of attracting Kosovo recognitions, what he has said one of his priorities for the new year will be “the continuation of the policy related to attracting Kosovo recognition”.

We expect that in the first weeks of this year there will be dozens of countries that will attract recognition, for which we have warned”, he said.

He said 18 countries that have drawn recognition already known, according to him, and so far there are nine that have not been published their names, but this list he says will be added to the tenth, so “would be the 28th country that would attract recognition”.