Vucic: Serbia's Position in Kosovo Issue More Difficult with Biden

Aleksandar Vucic(BETAPHOTO/HINA/FENA/Amer Kajmovic/MO)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said Serbia's position when it came to resolving the Kosovo issue would be more difficult with Joseph Biden as president of the U.S., while stressing that he thought highly of him as an excellent politician.

"I have a good personal relationship with him. I respect him highly. He's a very educated man, but he ran the policy when Kosovo was being taken from us. There's nothing to hide there -- I think very highly of him. He's an excellent politician, but on whether it's harder for us, yes, it's harder," Vucic told the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation on March 18.

Vucic said there was no non-paper on Kosovo, as some local media had reported that such a document had been drafted by EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak and U.S. envoy Matthew Palmer.

Vucic said the point was that Palmer was not trying to hide that the U.S. wanted mutual recognition between Kosovo and Serbia, which the president of the U.S. has said, that the EU wanted normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, while Serbia wanted compromise, but that he was not sure whether Kosovo Albanians were prepared to compromise.

Asked whether the expected departure of Angela Merkel from German politics would make things more difficult, Vucic said her withdrawal was sure to introduce more instability in Europe.