Kosovo-Serbia talks resume as pressure mounts on Belgrade

(BELGRADE) - EU-mediated talks between Belgrade and Pristina resume on Friday with Serbia under increasing pressure to improve its relations with Kosovo if it wants to get EU candidacy status this year.

The talks are the first time Kosovan and Serbian top officials will meet since violence flared in Kosovo's Serb majority north last month when a trade row got out of hand.

Pristina declared independence in 2008 but Serbia still considers the territory a break-away province. Kosovo is considered the cradle of Serb culture and is nominally still the seat of the very powerful Serb Orthodox church.

Belgrade is hoping that by making concessions in the talks it can avoid having to dismantle its parallel structures in the north like municipal councils, courts and schools and keep both the EU and the Kosovo Serbs happy and still get candidacy status this year.

Even though the tension in the north is not officially on the agenda for the talks, which are aimed at resolving day-to-day headaches for all Kosovo citizens, it will loom large when the dialogue resumes.

The main issue on the table, customs stamps, sparked the latest crisis. After Serbia rejected a compromise on a new Kosovo customs stamp in the last round of talks Pristina slapped a ban on all Serbian imports.

Since Pristina's 2008 declaration, Belgrade does not allow any goods to pass through Serbia that bear a Kosovo customs stamp as it states the products are from the republic of Kosovo.

When Pristina moved in to get control of two border posts in the north where they said Serb customs officials were flouting the ban, last month's violent clashes followed.

NATO-led KFOR troops took over control of the crossings after striking a deal that Belgrade and Pristina resume the dialogue to solve the trade row.

For Serbia the pressure to get results in the talks is enormous. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel outlined in Belgrade last week, it must show results in the talks and dismantle its parallel administrative structures in the north if it wants to get EU candidacy status this year.

Her blunt statement came as a shock to many here who expected Brussels to agree to candidacy status after Belgrade handed over the last remaining fugitives -- Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic -- to the UN war crimes court earlier this year.

Serbian President Boris Tadic "publicly saw his mantra of 'both Kosovo and Europe' shot down," said political analyst Bosko Jaksic in government-controlled daily Politika.

Jaksic said that the president had "painted himself into a corner" where he now must either make huge concessions over Kosovo or refuse Brussels and give up on the idea of a speedy EU membership. Both options come at a price just ahead of general elections due to take place in spring next year.

A government source told AFP that the two sides would "almost certainly" reach an agreement on the customs stamps "as everyone is losing with the ban on goods, especially Serbia which loses 250 million euros ($360 million) a year".

"We are also ready to finalise deals on telecommunications... recognition of university diplomas and electricity, so we do expect to have concrete results," the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci said Serbia and Kosovo were at "a decisive moment."

"Solving the problems in north Kosovo and normalising relations with Belgrade would put an end to more than 20 years of bitter division and conflict ... Serbian President Boris Tadic and I must not miss this opportunity," Thaci urged.