Head of the opposition’s People’s Party (NS) Vuk Jeremic met in Washington with the US State Department officials, congressmen and senators. In an interview for Voice of America (VoA), he stated that they discussed the upcoming elections in Serbia.
Jeremic said that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic “agreed on Kosovo’s membership in the United Nations (UN)” and that the top US administration has high expectations of Belgrade and Pristina shortly after the April 26th elections in Serbia.
“I don’t think they (the US administration) have high expectations before the elections in Serbia, but they will definitely have high expectations after the elections. Since a senior US official Richard Grenell, who has been appointed to a high-level position to oversee all US intelligence, has decided to remain involved in the (Kosovo negotiations) process, my conclusion is that he and the top US officials expect Belgrade and Pristina to conclude an agreement by November. When I spoke to people in Washington, no-one disagreed with this, ”Jeremic told Voice of America.
Jeremic spoke with representatives of the US administration at the State Department and had meetings with congressmen and senators, the People’s Party said in a statement.
Asked if he knew what had been agreed on Kosovo and Metohija, Jeremic said that his US interlocutors had not told him that and that it would be “incorrect to convey even the insinuations”.
“It is my expectation that this will be a comprehensive agreement on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, which implies that Kosovo will become a UN member,” Jeremic revealed.
On the occasion of the upcoming elections in Serbia, he said that “anyone who is really opposition to Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia today will not take part in them”.
“This is a state of affairs that the US administration has accepted. It is very important to note that things that were used to threaten us before, namely if we don’t participate in the election, we will no longer be viewed as a credible interlocutor of the international community, are now clearly off the table. The Serbian opposition remains a credible interlocutor of the international community and that was one of the important reasons I visited Washington this week, ” Vuk Jeremic added.
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He went on to say that the issues such as democracy and human rights “may no longer be a US priority as they have been in the past, but they are not the topics that have been completely forgotten and taken off the table.”
“Nobody in Washington today is under the illusion that Serbia is a democratic country, and after Freedom House’s report, no-one is even trying to portray Serbia as a democratic country,” Jeremic said.
He also said that, during his talks with the US officials, he focused on what was expected of Serbia after the election and how to get achieve fair election conditions after April 26th.
“I am pleased that all the officials I spoke to have shown interest in the Serbian opposition’s ideas how to achieve that,” Jeremic concluded.
(Nedeljnik, 07.03.2020)
https://www.nedeljnik.rs/vucic-dogovorio-clanstvo-kosova-u-un-vuk-jeremic-u-vasingtonu/
Photo credits: Nedeljnik
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