Nedeljkovic: It is significant that on the eve of the elections in the USA, Serbia established successful cooperation with both Republicans and Democrats

Assistant professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, Stevan Nedeljkovic, tells Kosovo Online that Serbia has established good cooperation with both Republicans and Democrats in the USA and that, regardless of whose candidate wins the presidential elections next year, there will be no drastic changes in Washington's policy.

"Previously, there was a kind of mantra that the Republicans were favorably disposed towards Serbia, while the Democrats were not. First of all, from the conservative values inherited by the Republican Party and some anti-Clinton logic that really existed in our country, I would say, quite well founded. However, In recent years, that mantra is changing, because, as we can see, the state of Serbia has quite successful cooperation with both the Democrats and the Republicans, so I think that the changes, if they were to happen in the US, would not drastically affect the policy that the US would had towards Serbia", Nedeljkovic believes.

He continues that if the Republican Party and its candidate, whoever it is, since it is unknown at the moment, win the presidential elections, it could mean a more nuanced and better approach towards Serbia, taking into account, Nedeljkovic states, good contacts which the state of Serbia has with Richard Grenell, but also with numerous other politicians from the USA who come from this party.

"On the other hand, if we look at Mr. Escobar's or Ambassador Hill's attitude towards Serbia, we see that it is anything but the bad attitude we remember from the 90s. There is much more understanding of Serbia's interests, position and they recognized Serbia's reputation and prestige very well. If you harm Serbia, it feels very wounded and this can drastically worsen relations between Serbia and the USA," Nedeljkovic says.

When asked whether the US is in a hurry to reach a solution or a significant advance in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina before the elections, as well as whether it can be expected that the topic of Kosovo will be high in the focus of the presidential campaign, Nedeljkovic replies that he thinks not.

"If we make an analogy with the year 2020, we saw that Donald Trump also wanted to use the Kosovo issue for his campaign. I would say, without any basis, that Donald Trump's obsession was, and I believe it still is, to win the Nobel peace prize. On the other hand, if we follow the foreign policy currents of the Joseph Biden administration, I would not say that the Kosovo issue will be a priority in an election year. In an election year, especially when the current president is running a race, and at this moment Joseph Biden is fighting for the nomination of his party, and later of course to win the presidential elections, I don't believe that they will invest a lot of energy and time in something that would be the final solution of the Kosovo issue, whatever that means," Nedeljkovic points out.

He adds that at this moment we are still "covering ourselves up with some mantra that this is normalization" and believes that in 2024 the USA will also give full support to the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina.

"Of course, this does not mean that some kind of final solution can be expected in that year. We also had some solutions in 2023, the Franco-German plan and the Ohrid Agreement, so we see that little is being implemented at this moment. But what is important, and what is important for the US is that there is stability. The priority of the US when it comes to Serbia is giving importance and giving Serbia's contribution to stability in the Western Balkans. And the second thing is constructiveness when it comes to dialogue with Pristina. Those are two key things on the basis of which the USA measures its policy towards Serbia", notes our interlocutor.