U.S. Ambassador: Serbian Party Brought the Right Attitude to Talks in Brussels

Christopher Hill (BETAPHOTO/AMIR HAMZAGIC)

U.S. ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill said on Aug. 19 that Serbia's delegation had arrived in Brussels for talks with their Kosovo counterparts “in the right spirit,” adding that that was good for the negotiating process with Pristina to continue and the future of U.S.-Serbian relations.

“It was very clear that the Serbian side arrived in Brussels for talks in the right spirit, it evidently worked on the issue a lot, but it was also ready to talk, negotiate and find a way forward,” Hill said in a brief video address posted by U.S. embassy on Twitter.

Ambassador Hill said that this “is good, not only for future discussions on Kosovo, but also for relations between the U.S. and Serbia in general.” “Not everything that the U.S. and Serbia are doing together needs to be related to Kosovo. Clearly we need to work very hard on the Kosovo issue, we need to find understanding. I think we all want this, but I also believe there are other issues, too, to work on together with the Serbs,” Hill said, adding that the U.S. and Serbia “have a lot in common" which was encouraging for the future.

Ned Price, a spokesperson for the Department of State said on Aug. 19 that Washington was fully committed to the dialogue, adding that it was necessary to develop a debate on the normalization of relations based on the presumption of mutual recognition.