"We brought serious experts, they took it back 13 centuries": Djuric on details of Brussels meeting

Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric addressed the public after yesterday's meetings in Brussels held as part of the continuation of the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina and said that the Belgrade delegation insisted on the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO) as the first topic of conversation. This encountered the opposition of the representatives of Pristina, who, he pointed out, were not ready to talk about the ZSO, nor about property.

Djuric, who is leading the Belgrade delegation in technical-expert talks in Brussels on normalization of relations with Pristina, said that serious experts from the Serbian central bank, NBS, as well as experts on private and public property were there, with concrete proposals and modalities on how to resolve issues.

"We had a not very rational, bitter and emotional discussion in which the representatives of Pristina tried to take it back 13 centuries and present Serbia as a colonizer, who occupied not only Kosovo and Metohija, but also Toplica and to deviate from the topic at hand with irrational, historically incorrect information," Djuric told reporters in Brussels.

He said that the Belgrade delegation responded with a rational approach and by not agreeing that the topic of the ZSO be removed from the agenda, or renamed in an inadequate way that would not reflect the status-neutral form of conversation.

"We have no intention of turning the talks about the ZSO into talks about the position of national minorities, nor will we agree to treat the Serb people in Kosovo and Metohija as a national minority," said Djuric and added that there will be no progress in the talks until the agreement on the ZSO has been fully implemented. as agreed in 2013 and in 2015.

The Belgrade delegation met on Thursday with EU Special Representative for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina Miroslav Lajcak. After bilateral meetings of both delegations with EU mediators, a new round of trilateral talks at expert level was held between Belgrade and Pristina.

On Wednesday, the EU announced a change in the agreed agenda, meaning that only financial claims would be discussed in Brussels on Thursday, but not the status of minority communities.

The Belgrade delegation insisted that the Community of Serb Municipalities should the first item to be discussed at yesterday's meeting.

(Telegraf.rs)