Djuric: Chollet told me that the US seriously intends to take steps toward the formation of the CSM

Serbia is making a great effort to turn the new chapter in relations with the United States of America, which was opened a few years ago, into a strategic partnership, Serbian Ambassador to Washington, Marko Djuric, told Euronews Serbia, who also indicated that America intended to take serious steps toward the formation of the CSM.

He also spoke about the involvement of the US in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina and stated that he had recently spoken with State Department official Derek Chollet, who told him that America intended to take steps toward the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities very seriously.

"We really strive to start a formal strategic dialogue between Serbia and the US in the near future. We believe that this is a debt to the present, but also to future generations, to whom we want to leave as a legacy a good relationship with the largest and most influential power of Western civilization," Djuric said.

As he points out, the relationship with the US is definitely one of the pillars of Serbian Foreign Policy, which, he adds, is balanced and measured.

"Having that in mind, we find a significant interest in developing good relations with America, with the fact that one thing has also fundamentally changed. We no longer have a passive relationship in this effort, we operate with full force on American soil, in Washington, New York, and Chicago where our representatives sit and we work not only with American institutions, but also with the economy, with our community, with people of our origin, of whom there are over a million in America," he pointed out.

When it comes to the visits of American officials to Belgrade, Djuric says that they primarily see Serbia as one piece in the mosaic of broader transatlantic relations.

As he says, Serbia is actually the one that is fighting for positive attention, to change every day a very bad image that was formed on that soil in the 1990s.

When asked if that image could be changed, Djuric answers - "absolutely".

"We are trying to refresh that image for them. We always appeal to them to look at Serbia with new eyes as a country that is rapidly developing economically; that has changed the paradigm of its economy, and its politics, as a country that is currently second in Europe in terms of economic growth. We can achieve so much in the economy together, which is evidenced by the fact that America has become Serbia's number one partner when it comes to services, which people here do not know, and employs over 36,000 people in the country. Our relationship goes beyond just the economy; America is a country that shapes the global trends of economy, politics, security, everything, both in our region and in the entire Western civilization, and globally it has a huge influence and to pretend that we can exist and protect without active action towards them our interests would directly harm only us," Djuric said.

When it comes to the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, Djuric says that Serbia wants to preserve stability in Kosovo, to protect the collective economic and political rights of the Serbs in Kosovo, to open "avenues of cooperation" or to pave the way to a wider normalization of relations and the Ohrid talks and the outcome of the conversation is one step in that direction.

"However, I have to say that looking at what is happening in the days after that and knowing the essence of the radical extremist policy of the leaders in Pristina, primarily (Albin) Kurti, I don't have too much reason for optimism," he said.

As he reported, before coming to Serbia, last Friday he had had a very serious conversation with Derek Chollet, the only one of the leading people and creators of foreign policy.

"He told me that America intended to take very serious steps towards the formation of the CSM. They did lead the process towards it, but not at the pace and not even close to the dynamics that we would like. We would just like to remind you of the fact that America is not even formally a guarantor nor signatory of the Brussels Agreement, this should have been done by the EU 10 years ago, and thanks to them for engaging in the issue of the CSM more than many European countries and for helping to stop the escalation in December. Escobar publicly stated that the CSM would be formed with Kurti or without him, let's do something in order to realize that soon. The demands of the Serbs are very rational, that Kurti withdraws his illegal formations from the north, seven illegal bases, and that he stops with terror and abuse, we saw another shooting last night, and the third thing is to see concrete steps towards the CSM," he said.

In Washington, as he said, he had asked for sanctions for Kurti and his "extremist course" and claimed that Serbia pointed out every day what Pistina was doing, which directly moved us away from normalization.

"Both the US and the EU have mechanisms that I hope they will use to a much greater extent in the coming period in order to entice Kurti and the government there to a true course of normalizing relations," he said.

He indicated that he had been in Boston ten days ago and stated that it was fascinating to talk to young Serbs who were at Harvard and a number of other top American schools.

"In working with our diaspora, we were fundamentally absent from America for a very long number of years, and because of everything that happened in the previous three decades, and probably in the period before that, a big gap was created between the state of Serbia and our people there. We're trying to bridge that gap. We're trying to restore contact and trust. That's why in the last two years, we've been sending our teams from the embassy, and whenever I could, I visited our communities across America. We've started to bring them together, to gather them, and as a result, last month in Washington, we organized the first conference of Serbian expatriates in America. We gave a new impetus to their mutual connection, a kind of direction, and motivated them. We are already seeing certain results," Djuric said.