Vucic Says Will Meet Putin in Sochi on Dec. 4, Fears of Possible International Conference on Kosovo

Aleksandar Vucic (Beta/Predsednistvo Srbije/Dimitrije Goll)

President Aleksandar Vucic has said he will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Dec. 4, and is planning to march with the Immortal Regiment in Moscow on Victory Day on May 9, next year.

Vucic has told Russian news agency Sputnik that the recent visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to Belgrade was much better than he himself had expected, noting that bilateral cooperation, sincere friendship and the highest level of trust were confirmed and that many concrete projects agreed during the visit.

Speaking about Belgrade-Pristina relations, Vucic said that “the essence is that an agreement should be reached by those who must define their future.”

“An agreement that would make no one fully happy. But such agreement does not exist nor will it be reached. Serbia’s tender ears would always like to hear something appealing to them, although it is far from reality. But, this is not a problem. The problem is that the Albanians decline to hear anything that can be a real compromise. And finally, everything offered to Serbia by the West today is no compromise,” Vucic specified.

Asked whether the format of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue would be changed and an international conference on Kosovo organized in an attempt to reach a settlement, Vucic replied he feared of international conferences.

“But if such a conference is organized, then it will have to engage the great powers. I advocate the talks with the Albanians and attempts to reach a compromise. Obviously, it is difficult,” Vucic noted.

Vucic further said that during a conversation in Davos, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had told him that Berlin could not accept partitions, border adjustments or redrawing border lines.

“Earlier, I had told her that the border line has not been defined. The boundary is perceived differently by Belgrade and Berlin, by Russia and the U.S., by China and France, by Spain and the Great Britain ... And, I am telling them – let’s define the border line,” Vucic said.