Djuric: Kurti is politically and factually an unwelcome person in Washington

Serbian Ambassador to the USA Marko Djuric said that Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti was politically, but in a good way and factually unwelcome in Washington, adding that the majority of the Albanians in the US were dissatisfied with Kurti's way of acting.

"Kurti is the biggest gravedigger of the independent state of Kosovo, Kurti is a sad figure and it is a great misfortune that he appeared at such a sensitive historical moment," Djuric told Happy TV.

Djuric points out that Kurti no longer has credibility with the majority of the Western public.

Commenting on the fact that the director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, was forbidden to go to Kosovo and attend the anniversary of the massacre of 14 harvesters, Djuric says that he would be much more worried if extremists like Kurti praised the policies of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, or the actions of Petar Petkovic.

"Petkovic should experience this as a kind of recognition of his work. I was a little disappointed because I saw that there was no international representative at the commemoration of the massacre of the harvesters," Djuric pointed out.

The Ambassador of Serbia to the USA, commenting on the accusations against the SOC of smuggling weapons in Kosovo, said that these accusations should not be taken lightly.

"The very fact that they were made public has serious consequences for our image because that woman is the President of the Foreign Policy Committee. That is why it was important to react promptly. It is an attempt to criminalize the SOC and justify the Kurti regime's repression of the Serbs in Kosovo," he said.

He adds that it was necessary to point out that it is inadmissible to present such accusations without a cover and he assessed that it was good that KFOR had also denied it, as well as a group of British MPs.

When asked about the punitive measures against Kosovo, Djuric points out that in recent months no minister from Kosovo has been to the US, and that, in contrast, Serbia also had a business forum led by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic.

"Would we like to see more of this, yes, but whether this is a situation in which the Americans take only one side, no. Many in Pristina are nervous about that and Serbia's lobbying in the US," he said.

He also states that he has conversations in the USA every day in which they try to convince him that Serbia is wrong and that it should recognize Kosovo's independence.

"To the political class in the USA, the geopolitical situation looks different than it does here in Serbia," he says, adding that the task of diplomats is to find even the smallest things in common.

"For eight years, I shared both bitter and beautiful moments in Kosovo and Metohija, I care about Kosovo and Metohija no less than Vracar, where I was born and where I lived, but we try not to be guided by emotions in those conversations. In the priorities of the US political public, events in the Balkans are low on the list, they are interested in China, Russia, a little bit in the Middle East, and BRICS, everything else is the subject of conversation only when it appears in the news, and that news when it appears is not necessarily good for us. Now, if you will be able to present it in relation to the context, is the question. I try to serve the facts, but let's also look at how to connect in an interesting way," he says.

On the issue of sanctions against the Director of the Security Intelligence Agency, Aleksandar Vulin, Djuric says that it certainly did not help Serbia much.

"I share the opinion of President Vucic. Serbia acted clearly and transparently, we asked for evidence that would confirm those claims, which are very serious. But it will turn out that Vucic is right, that it is about a wider geopolitical context. I explain and fight for as few unpleasant things as possible in the relations between Serbia and the USA, but we must understand that the great powers always want the regions they consider to be their sphere of influence to conform to their direction of movement," he says.

As he states, observing Serbia and the region from a distance gives a somewhat different perspective.

"The fact is that I live and work in a country where most people heard about Serbia in the 1990s, and not necessarily in a positive way. For me, that is not discouraging, for me it is more of a challenge. I am lucky to serve in a period when Serbia invests the most in changing its image and relations. Today, Serbia strives to develop its diplomacy that will ensure that we prosper economically and politically," Djuric says.