BRUSSELS – The second meeting at the expert level within the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue was held yesterday in Brussels between the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija of the Government of Serbia Marko Đurić and Kosovo State Coordinator for Dialogue Skender Hyseni in the presence of EU special representative for dialogue Miroslav Lajčák, N1 reports.
The issue of missing persons and economic cooperation were discussed again, while both sides confirmed that they did not discuss the final status of Kosovo, but technical issues.
The Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Đurić, stated after the meeting that the essence of the negotiations is to achieve betterment for the citizens living in Kosovo.
“At times, we argued vigorously, we could not even agree on the format at the beginning. But it is always good to talk. We also had an attempt to hand over a paper to the Serbian side which would point out our alleged violations of the CEFTA agreement. However, we did not accept something like that, we came to talk about solving specific things “, said Đurić.
Kosovo State Coordinator for Dialogue Skender Hyseni pointed out that the goal of the negotiations is to reach a final agreement, but he did not want to talk about the details.
“We did not go into much detail. Give us more time to talk and agree on some special elements of the agreement that I metaphorically called – an umbrella, which will cover all common issues and which will finally be packaged as a comprehensive, internationally recognized legally binding agreement between the two countries,” Hyseni said.
EU special representative for dialogue Miroslav Lajčák assessed that the meeting of expert teams in Brussels was “another important step” in the dialogue process and announced the continuation of talks at the end of August.
“Today’s expert level meeting of the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue was another important step in the process towards a comprehensive legally-binding agreement to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia. Our work will continue at the end of August,” Lajčák wrote on his Twitter account.
Today’s expert level meeting of the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue was another important step in the process towards a comprehensive legally-binding agreement to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia. Our work will continue at the end of August.
— Miroslav Lajčák (@MiroslavLajcak) July 30, 2020
This was the second meeting on an expert level after representatives of Belgrade and Pristina met on July 23rd in Brussels.
After a 20-month standstill, the dialogue was launched at the political level in mid-July in Brussels, when Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti met to discuss missing persons, displaced persons and economic cooperation.
Political talks at the highest level are planned for early September.