Dacic: Recognizing the elections in the north of Kosovo without the participation of the Serbs is a return to the "pre-Brussels situation"

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivica Dacic, pointed out today, regarding the statement of the US Special Envoy Gabriel Escobar that America would recognize the elections in Kosovo regardless of Serbia boycotting them, that this was a "return to the pre-Brussels situation", according to which it was not important whether the Serbs participate in the elections and in institutions or not, even though the Brussels Agreement had introduced them into those institutions.

​On the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Brussels Agreement, Dacic told RTV that it had been "a decision for which he does not know what it brought us".

"The signing was important for the positioning of Serbia, it meant that we have a say in something. The Community of Serb-majority Municipalities was the beginning and the end of that agreement, that instead of the institutions of Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija, we have the institutions of the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija and that the Serbs be placed as an autochthonous political factor there," Dacic said.

When asked if he would still sign that agreement today, since the most important part of that agreement, the CSM, had not been formed even after 10 years, Dacic, referring to the statements, above all of US officials, that it had to be implemented, says the following.

"If it has to be implemented, if Pristina is going to do it, then I would definitely sign it".

He reiterated that the "new Brussels agreement", i.e. the acceptance of the Franco-German plan on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina did not mean either de facto or de jure recognition of Kosovo, that Vucic had only verbally accepted that plan and clearly emphasized that the red lines were the non-acceptance of independence and not agreeing to the membership of so-called Kosovo in the UN.

And when asked who, if it came to the signing of the "new Brussels agreement", would do it, Dacic replies that the Ohrid Agreement states that the status of Kosovo has not been resolved, but that there are different approaches to the status and that for Belgrade, Kosovo is an autonomous province, while for them it is independent.

Commenting on the decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to abandon it, after his announcement that he would not go to Strasbourg if the accession of Kosovo was on the agenda, Dacic said that a significant number of countries were against such a decision and added that putting pressure on Iceland, which presided over the Council of Europe. to include it in the agenda, did not stop.

"They told me that it won't happen today, but maybe it will happen on Friday..." Dacic said.

Referring to accusations from Pristina that lobbying in Strasbourg violated Article 4 of the Ohrid Agreement, which states that Belgrade will not prevent Kosovo's admission to international organizations, Dacic replied the following.

"That says the one who hasn't implemented the Brussels Agreement on the formation of the CSM for 10 years says. They should zip their lip. Serbia is small, but it's not stupid. President Vucic speaks precisely - we won't implement what we didn't agree to".