Cvetkovic, Marinkovic meet with Escobar in Washington

WASHINGTON - Serbian Minister of Economy Slobodan Cvetkovic and Congress of Serbian-American Friendship President Vladimir Marinkovic met in Washington with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar to discuss advancing bilateral economic cooperation and creating an even better investment environment in Serbia.

They also discussed the potential attendance of Serbian businesspeople at a major Washington business fair in June and Cvetkovic said Serbia was open to even more US investments, and gave a presentation of projects to be carried out in the next three years, with particular focus on EXPO 2027, the Ministry of Economy said in a statement.

The discussion topics included further US support to the Open Balkan initiative, and Escobar confirmed full US commitment to the project, which is not only an economic one, but a peace project as well.

Marinkovic and Escobar discussed a need to re-establish dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, with the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities as a precondition for that.

Marinkovic voiced concern over continued pressure and aggression against Serbs by the Albin Kurti regime and said more and more Serbs were moving out of Kosovo-Metohija as a result of the pressure and that the US should by no means remain distanced from the issue but put Kurti under pressure to ensure the attacks stop and the preconditions are created for discussions about normalisation of economic relations in particular, as well as normalisation of life for Serbs, especially in the north of the province.