Ohrid ready for the meeting between Vucic and Kurti

The most popular North Macedonian tourist destination, Ohrid, is ready to be the center of political events in the region this weekend and host a new meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti with the mediation of the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell.

As a Kosovo Online reporter reports from the scene, a large number of policemen are present on the streets of Ohrid, which indicates important guests who will negotiate tomorrow on the implementation of the European proposal for the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. A large number of policemen are also visible around Villa Bojana, where the meeting will be held, who do not allow anyone to approach the building.

The new round of dialogue at the highest level will begin, as announced by the European External Action Service, with separate meetings between Vucic and Kurti with EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Borrell and Dialogue Envoy Miroslav Lajcak.

Then a trilateral meeting will be held, after which, in the afternoon, Borrell will address the media.

Unlike some previous meetings, the time of the press conference was not announced this time. The announcement states that the meeting will be focused on the topic of finalizing the annex on the implementation of the European agreement for the normalization of relations.

The meeting is a continuation of the talks from Brussels, from February 27, at which Vucic and Kurti accepted the European proposal, the implementation of which Belgrade and Pristina should agree on.

However, many believe that an agreement on the implementation of the so-called "roadmap" will be difficult to achieve in Ohrid, because Belgrade is firm in its position that there are no new agreements until the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities is formed, which Pristina persistently rejects.

Therefore, analysts agree that the meeting in Ohrid will not be a turning point and that the outcome will depend on the pressure of EU representatives, but mostly the US, whose Special Envoy Gabriel Escobar, "as an observer", will also attend the meeting.

 Before the talks in Ohrid, Lajcak, and Escobar stayed, separately, in Pristina and Belgrade, in order to prepare for the meeting in North Macedonia, but the positions of the two sides remained unchanged.

Before going to Ohrid, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that there was still no draft of what the European Union wanted, saying that there was not and would not be any fateful day in Ohrid.

He repeated several times that the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities was "a condition of all conditions" and that without it, as obligations stemming from the four already signed documents, further negotiations could not be carried out.

On the other hand, Albin Kurti from Pristina sends different messages - he is optimistic; he says that an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia will be reached in Ohrid. He also says that the success of the meeting does not depend only on him, although he persistently refuses to form the CSM.

Similarly, the President of Kosovo said today that she expected positive results from the meeting in Ohrid, stating that any attempt by Serbia to prevent a positive outcome through conditionality could harm the dialogue process.

 In the meantime, both Miroslav Lajcak and Escobar say that there will be no agreement without the CSM.