Serbia wants 'neutral' Kosovo status at Balkans-EU summit

(BELGRADE) - Serbia on Wednesday said the status of Kosovo, which broke free from Belgrade in 2008, should be presented in a neutral way at international meets such as the EU-Balkans summit this weekend.

Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said the issue was raised during a meeting with the EU commissioner for enlargement Stefan Fuele who is visiting the region ahead of the summit to be held in Slovenia on Saturday.

"We spoke of the way the representatives of Kosovo participate in several international conferences and the way this participation can be neutral with regards to the status of Kosovo," Cvetkovic told a press conference.

Belgrade has threatend to boycott the meeting if Pristina's leaders are presented as state representatives. It has accepted to meet the Kosovo authorities when they are represented under the United Nations administration UNMIK flag.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in March 2008, but Belgrade still considers the area a breakaway province.

Fuele and the Serbian prime minister also discussed immigration. Belgium and Sweden have raised the alarm in the past weeks over a sudden hike in asylum demands from ethnic Albanians from Serbia and Macedonia.

According to some estimates between 5,000 and 10,000 Albanians left the border are between Serbia and Macedonia in the hope of getting political asylum in the EU.

Since December last year Serb and Macedonian nationals no longer need a visa to enter most countries of the European bloc.

Cvetkovic said the problem was "resolving itself little by little".

"There are less and less (asylum) demands. Things are getting back to normal," he said.

The EU-Balkans summit is designed to speed up the EU integration of all the states from the Balkans. It is to take place at Brdo pri Kranju, near Slovenia's capital Ljubljana.

Of the six former Yugoslav republics -- Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia -- only the latter has joined the European Union. Croatia hopes to become the bloc's 28th member by 2012.