Serb municipalities should be formed as soon as possible - UK ambassador

BELGRADE - The UK's Ambassador to Serbia Edward Ferguson told Tanjug on Friday a Community of Serb Municipalities should be established as soon as possible as it was an important part of dialogue and normalisation of Belgrade-Pristina relations.

Asked whether he believed the Community would ever be formed, Ferguson said that, 11 years after the 2013 Brussels Agreement - under which it is to be established - it was overdue and "should have been in place by now."

"We want to see it put in place as soon as possible. We do think it is an important mechanism to give some confidence to the Serb communities in Kosovo around how their affairs can be best managed," Ferguson added.

"We think it is an important part of normalising the relationship between Belgrade and Pristina and so we continue to encourage the authorities in Kosovo to move forward with that as quickly as possible, and our PM’s special envoy Lord (Stuart) Peach has been very clear about this as well," he said.

He said the UK believed it was "really important to maintain the political dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina that is led by the EU and the US."

"We are not a core part of it but we support it. We think it is really important to keep talking but, more than that, we think it is really important to actually move forward with the commitment that both sides have made to implement those agreements, including the Ohrid Agreement that was reached only last year. We have not seen enough progress yet," Ferguson said.