Serbia expected to re-engage in Kosovo talks: EU

(BELGRADE) - Serbia is expected to resume talks with Kosovo and achieve visible progress in order to get a date for EU accession negotiations, European Union Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said Thursday.

"Regarding the relations with Kosovo, Serbia is now expected to implement all agreements to date and re-engage constructively on all issues with EU facilitation," Fuele said after meeting Prime Minister Ivica Dacic.

"I reassured the prime minister that... the commission stands ready to confirm that accession negotiations should be opened with Serbia as soon as it makes sufficient progress on the key priority, visible and sustainable improvement of relations with Kosovo," he said.

On Wednesday Dacic slammed the EU's demands to normalise relations with Kosovo as unacceptable for Belgrade, saying they could be an obstacle to resumption of the dialogue with Serbia's breakaway southern province.

Tense northern Kosovo is populated mostly by minority Serbs who, politically and economically backed by Belgrade, refuse to recognise Pristina's authority.

Dacic has several times said the best solution for Kosovo would be its partition between the Serb-dominated north and the ethnic Albanian-populated south under control of Pristina.

Both Pristina and the international community have strongly rejected the idea and Fuele said Thursday that "the eventual partition of Kosovo is not on the table."

"The aim of this process is to achieve sufficient normalisation that enables both to move on the European Union paths... and this encompasses the issues in the north," he said.

Following the meeting with Fuele, Dacic took a step back, saying that Serbia was "determined to continue the dialogue" with Kosovo.

Under strong international pressure Belgrade and Pristina have been engaged in a EU-brokered dialogue since March 2011 and reached several accords that would make the Kosovo population's everyday life easier.

Kosovo's 2008 unilaterally proclaimed independence, fiercely rejected by Serbia, has been recognised by some 90 states, including the United States and 22 out of the 27 EU member states.