State Department offers help in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue

REUTERS/Larry Downing

Belgrade and Pristina must remove obstacles, avoid provocations and return to negotiations, the State Department announced on the occasion of the cancellation of the summit in Paris, which was due to be held on July 1, under the auspices of Germany and France.

The United States said in its communique that they continue to support the European Union's (EU) dialogue mediateion and the normalization of relations between the two capitals.

“We are ready to listen to both sides and help both them and the EU as an intermediary to find a solution suited for everyone,” the State Department said.

The Director of the Serbian Government's Office for Kosovo, Marko Djuric, said that he would like the State Department to tell him “where and when has Serbia provoked someone or introduced barriers to anyone”.

Djuric said this in response to the State Department's allegations that the US authorities continue to support the dialogue mediated by the EU and the normalization of the Serbia-Kosovo relations, but that “Belgrade and Pristina must remove obstacles, avoid provocations and return to negotiations.”

“We know that the United States supports Kosovo's independence, but that's no excuse for the equalization of Serbia with Pristina, which introduced the anti-civilizational fees, blocked the dialogue, keeps blocking the Community of Serb Municipalities for 2,252 days now, and destabilizing the situation on the ground with their frequent violent actions,” Djuric said in the written statement.