Drecun: West trying to expedite normalisation and get Belgrade to recognise so-called Kosovo

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian parliamentary committee on Kosovo-Metohija Milovan Drecun said on Wednesday the leading Western countries that recognised the false state of Kosovo were trying to expedite the normalisation process between Belgrade and Pristina and get Belgrade to recognise the so-called Kosovo.

"The West is trying to expedite the process of reaching an agreement, which, in my opinion, is impossible because our side will not accept two key points in the agreement proposed by the EU. Elections are due in the West next year, campaigning will start in the US as well as the EU, which is something that is raising the West's expectations that this should be finished as soon as possible. That is where a certain impatience comes from," Drecun told Tanjug.

Despite the scarcity of information released following a recent visit to Belgrade by a "big five" of Western envoys, Drecun said certain conclusions could be drawn based on statements by EU spokesperson Peter Stano and the EU's special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, who has said the "five" had drawn up a new plan that was supposed to ensure a continuation of dialogue and lead to progress in implementation of an agreement on the path to normalisation of relations, noting that a Community of Serb Municipalities must be established.

"After that, Stano came out with a statement that there are new proposals and ideas and that some of the proposals are even in written form, and that the 'five' brought a new draft statute of the community of majority-Serb municipalities. That shows that discussions are underway about how to make a package that would be acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina, and that efforts will be made in the period to come to bring the positions of the two parties closer together to potentially reach an agreement," Drecun said.

The request to Pristina is to accept the draft statute and start making concrete steps towards forming the Community and hold elections in the north of Kosovo, while the request to Belgrade is to sway local Serbs into participating in the elections, which Srpska lista has accepted, Drecun said.

"The main direction (of action) is towards Belgrade, because they want our side to fully accept and implement that EU agreement on the path to normalisation of relations, but it contains two points that are unacceptable to us. I think that will be a bone of contention now," Drecun concluded.