Belgrade, April 19, 2010

SERBIA – REGION

TADIC, JOSIPOVIC: OPEN ISSUES CAN BE RESOLVED
BACCKI MONOSTOR, April 17 (Tanjug) - Serbian President Boris Tadic and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said Friday in Backi Monostor, northwestern Serbia, that mutual lawsuits for genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) can be resolved through negotiations.
They expressed their readiness to contribute personally to withdrawal of mutual lawsuits for genocide, but noted that this is the task of the two governments. Josipovic said that lawsuits before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) make sense only if a solution cannot be found otherwise.
Tadic pointed to the importance of responsible and unselective war crimes trials for the sake of improving bilateral relations. Serbia abides by the principle that no crime must remain unresolved and that no perpetrator must go unpunished, Tadic said. The rights of citizens must not be undermined, Tadic emphasized. The two presidents also expressed hope that Serbia and Croatia will in a few years have history books with equal treatment of past developments.
They also expressed hope that they will be mentioned in these books as the persons who played a key role in improving relations. Considerable progress has been made bearing in mind the painful historical events and it will contribute to political reconciliation, stability and development in the region, Tadic noted. He particularly welcomed the mutual support of Serbia and Croatia for integration in the European Union without preconditions.
The citizens of Serbia and Croatia will certainly live together under the same EU roof, he said. The two presidents also reiterated the commitment of their countries to settling relations in Bosnia Herzegovina, where a solution can only be found through a consensus of the three sovereign nations. Jopipovic expressed hope that the three sovereign nations in Bosnia Herzegovina will define constitutional changes and create a functional state.

TADIC: RELATIONS WITH CROATIA WILL IMPROVE
BACCKI MONOSTOR, April 17 (Tanjug) Serbian President Boris Tadic said Friday in Backi Monostor after meeting Croatian President Ivo Josipovic and representatives of the Croatian community in Vojvodina that the goal of all his meetings with Josipovic is to improve the relations between the peoples of Serbia and Croatia.
Tadic said he and Josipovic met earlier in the day with representatives of the Serb and Croat communities in Hungary and two days earlier also in Bosnia Herzegovina with the same goal. He said that he asked the Croat community in Bosnia Herzegovina to foster the best relations with Serbs, despite painful developments in the 1990s.
He noted that he and Josipovic wish to help improve the relations between the Serb and Croat peoples and between Serbia and Croatia. There are open issues between Serbia and Croatia, but they should be resolved step by step, Tadic said. Josipovic said he is convinced that the Serbian government is doing everything to improve the position of the Croat minority in the country. Croatia wants peace and friendship with all neighbors, he said.

TADIC: REGIONAL RECONCILIATION IS IMPERATIVE FOR SERBIA
NEW YORK, April 16 (Tanjug) Serbian President Boris Tadic stated that the reconciliation of the people in the region is an "absolute imperative" for Serbia, adding that the Serbian parliament's adoption of the Declaration condemning the crime in Srebrenica is the product of Serbia's "absolute dedication" to restore trust and friendship in the region.
"For us, reconciliation is seen as a moral imperative to tell the truth the unadorned, factual, horrible truth of the bloodshed that must never return to our lands. We also understand it as being a categorical rejection of the individuals who falsely claimed to act in our name, and a repudiation of the policies that promoted violence and hatred," Tadic said in an interview for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), published on Friday. By taking the lead in regional reconciliation, Serbia has opened the door for others to step through, in the hope that we can together build a prosperous and inclusive future as members of the European Union (EU) our central strategic priority, Tadic said. "This is our vision, and we will see it through, come what may," he added. Tadic underlined that Serbia has demonstrated the courage to be the first to apologize for heinous atrocities that were committed by all sides in the Yugoslav civil wars. "Accepting one's share of responsibility for what happened in the past is an integral part of the democratic consolidation of every country in our neighborhood. This is an indispensable step in the advancement of sustainable peace and stability in the Western Balkans," Tadic underscored.
Discussing the crime in Srebrenica in July 1995, Tadic said that this is one of the most tragic chapters of the Yugoslav civil wars of the 1990s. "In order to show that Serbia mourns for all the victims, I traveled to Srebrenica a year after I was first elected president of Serbia to stand with the survivors and bow to victims on the 10th anniversary of that terrible atrocity," Tadic stated.
According to Tadic, this opened up a fierce national debate on the misdeeds of the Slobodan Milosevic regime and increased regional awareness of the critical importance of reconciliation, a core European value that Serbia wholeheartedly embraced following the restoration of Serbian democracy on October 5, 2000. "Our similarities far outweighed our differences, as they still do, and while discrimination was not unheard of, it was far from rampant. In short, reconciliation helps us take back our past from the nefarious fearmongers still lurking in our midst," he said. It is against this backdrop that the Serbian parliament on March 30 adopted a historic declaration on Srebrenica that unequivocally condemned the war crimes that took place there, Tadic stated.
"The declaration is the product of my country's absolute dedication to restore trust and promote friendship and understanding between two proud nations in our region and, more broadly, two great religious traditions present throughout our increasingly interdependent world," Tadic said. "As such, this unprecedented document the first of its kind in the Western Balkans extends profound condolences and sincere apologies to the families of the Bosnian Muslim victims," the Serbian president added. Moreover, the document reaffirms full support for the efforts of the Serbian government to successfully complete its cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which includes locating, arresting and extraditing the Bosnian Serb wartime commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, Tadic stated.
"The declaration also underlines Serbia's commitment to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We hope it will help facilitate a process for its three constituent peoples to come together in agreement on necessary internal reforms," the president stated. "Silence is no longer acceptable, and neither is hiding behind outdated wartime rhetoric," since "the era of accountability in our part of the world has begun, and it is here to stay," the Serbian president concluded.

ALKALAJ: BIH-SERBIA RELATIONS ARE STAGNATING
BELGRADE, April 19 (Tanjug) Foreign Minister of Bosnia Herzegovina Sven Alkalaj stated Monday that relations with Serbia are again stagnating, even though they have recently improved, and added that "bilateral relations between BiH and Serbia are characterized by significant ups and downs."
We believe that Serbia's interest in the welfare of Serbs who live in BiH is legitimate, however, the reasons for concern are the ways and methods by which Serbia is trying to affect BiH's own internal political issues, Alkalaj stated for the Belgradebased daily Blic. According to him, public statements of certain Serbian officials who are trying to deny BiH's international and legal legitimacy and sovereignty cannot contribute to further normalization and development of good neighborly relations between the two countries.
Alkalaj said that the issues of borders, cooperation with The Hague Tribunal and succession, that is the assets of BiH companies in Serbia, have remained unresolved for years, but the institutional cooperation of authorized bodies of BiH and Serbia is satisfactory. However, the realization of cooperation and concrete steps in the improvement of relations are conditioned by the political situation, Alkalaj underscored.

SERBIA

KOSACHEV, JEREMIC ON FURTHERING COOPERATION
BELGRADE, April 16 (Beta) - Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic and Kostantin Kosachev, the president of the Russian Duma's Foreign Policy Committee, spoke in Belgrade on April 16 about the relations between their two countries and on deepening cooperation in all fields.
"Minister Jeremic conveyed his gratitude on the continual support the Russian Federation has been extending to the Serbian republic's fight for territorial integrity," says a statement by the Foreign Ministry.
The statement added that Jeremic and Kosachev concluded that the full stability of the West Balkans was of paramount importance, as was furthering cooperation between all countries in the region.

TADIC: SERBIA TO BECOME EU CANDIDATE IN 2011 OR EARLIER
PECS, April 16 (Tanjug) Serbian President Boris Tadic stated Friday, after a meeting with his Hungarian and Croatian counterparts in Pecs, that he hopes Serbia will get the EU candidate status for full EU membership during the Hungary's EU presidency, if not before.
Hungary will take hold of the EU rotating presidency in 2011. Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom said at a joint press conference with Tadic and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic that his country will offer strong support to the EU integration process of Serbia and Croatia. Tadic and Josipovic underlined that the establishing of new standards in the reconciliation policy deserves full affirmation.
Tadic pointed out that he is proud of the Serbian parliament that has recently adopted the Declaration condemning crime in Srebrenica, adding that he hopes that other parliaments in the region will adopt similar resolutions regarding crimes in World War II and after it. Tadic said that it is extremely important that the principle that one country does not condition the other on its EU pathway has been confirmed once again. "Serbia would like that Croatia becomes a EU member as early as possible since that implies that Serbia will also realize this strategic goal soon, and thus all our nations will be able to live together under a single European sky, recognizing, of course, the integrity of every individual country," the Serbian president stated.
Josipovic expressed gratitude to Hungary for its support to Croatia's EU integration process, adding that he hopes that Croatia will complete the EU accession talks before the end of 2010. He said that Croatia's European future will not be complete unless its neighbors, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, go in the same direction.
Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom qualified the Friday meeting as very constructive, adding that such meetings are examples of good cooperation. Hungary will do everything to make the EU accession of Serbia and Croatia as fast as possible. I hope that Serbia will achieve the EU candidate status during Hungary's presidency, Solyom stated. Hungary will help Serbia fulfill the EU questionnaire, he added.

DACIC: REGIONAL POLICE MINISTERS MEETING TO BE HELD SOON
BELGRADE, April 16 (Tanjug) At the Friday meeting with a delegation of the European Parliament (EP), Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic pointed out that regional cooperation of police ministers is very good. Speaking about international cooperation, Dacic said that Serbia's police, in cooperation with US and British security services, managed to confiscate five tons of cocaine in the past year and a half.
This achievement points to a very successful crossborder cooperation in the fight against illegal drug trade, Dacic said at a meeting with the European parliamentarians, who were led by Vice-President of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament Hannes Swoboda.
Dacic, who is also a Deputy Prime Minister, pointed out that the work of the Interior and Justice Ministries in terms of visa liberalization has proved a big step on Serbia's path towards the European integration. Touching on the political situation in the country, Dacic said that "the desire of the ruling coalition is to achieve political stability and remain united until the end of its mandate," stated the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION TO CREATE WORK FOR SERBIAN COMPANIES
RAKOVAC, April 16 (Tanjug) Serbian Minister of the Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic said Friday that the completion of the highway section from Novi Sad to Horgos will give a significant boost to the Serbian construction industry and create more work for Serbian companies.
A contract will be signed next week for the construction of this section of Corridor 10 and the beltway on the Subotica-Kelebija stretch, worth EUR 100 million, which will be of great importance to many Serbian construction companies" and the economy as a whole, Dinkic told reporters during his visit to construction materials manufacturer Alas Holding.
Stressing that the Serbian government will keep supporting both Serbian and foreign investors, that is "everyone who is creating new jobs, because unemployment is our biggest problem right now," Dinkic added that the highway construction will put Serbia's industrial capacities to work and create jobs. During his visit to the municipality of Beocin in northwestern Serbia, Dinkic visited a new mineral processing and separation facility in the Alas Rakovac factory in the Ledinci village. Austrian company Alas Holding invested EUR 8 million in the facility and a loading ramp on the Danube River.

SERBIA – EU

EU COMMENDS SERBIA’S FOREIGN POLICY IN REGION
BRUSSELS, April 16 (Beta) – Serbia’s actions geared towards furthering cooperation and solving all open issues with its neighbors have received very positive reviews within the EU, being seen as supportive of the entire European integration process, it was pointed out during a meeting by the EU’s Committee for the West Balkans held on April 16.
At the conference, which took place in Brussels, it was also said that Serbia’s EU member candidacy could make the agenda as early as June. At that point, the first step would be a consensus among EU foreign ministers on beginning the ratification of Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement, prior to receiving a report by Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, on Belgrade’s cooperation with the tribunal.
BETA learned all this from officials within the EU Council of Ministers, who stressed that the 27 high European officials have concluded that the question of Kosovo’s unilaterally declared independence should be discussed further, as an issue separate from Serbia’s association with the union.
There was explicit satisfaction over the clear goals and actions of Serbian President Boris Tadic aimed towards improving relations with neighboring countries, especially with regards to his meetings and cooperation with Croatian President Ivo Josipovic. Both presidents have voiced their determination to pragmatically solve all issues between their countries, to further bilateral and regional cooperation and which was especially lauded by the EU to support Bosnia and Herzegovina in solving its internal issues while keeping its territorial integrity.
The adoption of the Declaration on Srebrenica in the Serbian Parliament was also commended, the Committee for the West Balkans announced.

EU CITIZENS ONLY ID CARDS FOR TRANSIT THROUGH SERBIA
BELGRADE, April 16 (Beta)- The Serbian Interior Ministry has ordered all border crossing officials to allow EU citizens passage through Serbia requiring only ID cards and not passports, Border Police Directorate Chief Nenad Banovic announced April 17.
The decision was made after requests from several embassies of EU member countries, the ministry explained.
“Due to the volcano eruption in Iceland and the cloud of volcanic ash that has covered Europe, air traffic to all European destinations has been halted… EU citizens cannot return to their countries by plane but are instead forced to use alternative means of transportation (buses, cars, trains),” the ministry said.
According to the statement, EU citizens are not obliged to carry anything but an ID card when traveling to EU member countries. Thus, until regular air traffic is resumed within the EU, the union’s citizens will not be required to carry passports for transit through Serbia.

KOSOVO AND METOHIJA

DELL: BOTH SERBIA AND KOSOVO SHOULD JOIN EU
STRPCE, April 17 (Tanjug) US ambassador to Kosovo Christopher Dell has pointed to the need for integration of both Serbia and Kosovo in the European Union. According to Dell, Serbian authorities should forget the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 as an argument for their return to Kosovo, as it is precisely that resolution that put an end to Serbia's rule in Kosovo in 1999.
After meeting on Friday the municipal officials of Strpce, elected in local elections which were not recognized by the Serbian authorities, Dell said that politicians in Belgrade have poor imagination in regard to the new reality in Kosovo, Pristina media reported. Belgrade officials are mentioning different ideas, but it was precisely those ideas which had caused wars in the Balkans, Dell said.
IVANOVIC: RESOLUTION 1244 CANNOT BE DISAVOW
BELGRADE, April 17 (Tanjug) State Secretary with the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo Metohija Oliver Ivanovic said Saturday that the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 was adopted unanimously and that no one can disavow it on their own behalf.
Ivanovic told Tanjug he is aware and understands the stands of some countries which have recognized Kosovo's independence and therefore want to disavow the Resolution 1244. However, given the present ratio of powers in the UN SC, it can hardly be expected to annul the Resolution 1244, Ivanovic said. Reacting to a statement of the US ambassador to Kosovo Christopher Dell that Serbian authorities should forget the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, Ivanovic said Serbia will rely on that document as long as it remains valid.
It is not only the Resolution 1244 which maintains Serbia's convection that Kosovo Metohija is its integral part, Ivanovic noted. Serbia has its Constitution, which is the supreme act for all politicians, he said. The Constitution is absolutely binding for both the authorities and the opposition, he said. Any hopes by some people that Serbia will give up Kosovo Metohija, either directly or indirectly, are being voiced in vain, Ivanovic said.

ZANNIER:PRACTICAL PROBLEMS SHOULD BE SOLVED THROUGH DIALOGUE
BELGRADE, April 18 (Tanjug) UNMIK Head Lamberto Zannier said that the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo is concerned about the methods of implementing the strategy for northern Kosovo and believes that this should be done through dialogue with all interested parties and people affected by the strategy.
It is very important to encourage such dialogue and we are now working to create the necessary conditions, regardless of who the intermediary is. It is important to seek solutions to specific problems... we are now discussing practical matters such as reconstructing roads and bringing electricity, Zannier said in an interview for the daily Politika.
He pointed out that he has been involved with establishing direct dialogue between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo from the start and that his most important task has been activating dialogue which focuses on practical issues. I believe Serbian Orthodox Church heritage is another very important issue. We are in daily contact with the EU representative in charge of the issue, who has been accepted by both Belgrade and Pristina, and this is a very good model that promotes progress in various areas, Zannier said.
He pointed out that the rule of law is the key area he should work to improve. Zannier believes conditions for dialogue will be more favorable after the International Court of Justice renders its opinion on the legality of Kosovo's unilaterally declared independence.

TACI ACCUSES UNMIK OF APPEARANCE OF CORRUPTION IN KOSOVO
PRISTINA, April 16 (Tanjug) Kosovo Prime Minister Hasim Taci has stated that Kosovo judiciary applies UNMIK rules in the fight against corruption in Kosovo, the Pristina daily Koha Ditore reported Friday.
Taci said that, as prime minister, he cannot do any better when it comes to the fight against corruption, adding that the judicial system still operates in compliance with the UNMIK rules and that the UN mission is responsible for the appearance of corruption in Kosovo. Success in the fight against corruption can be achieved only if the judicial system is comprehensively reformed, Taci said after the meeting with Head of European Commission (EC) Liaison Office to Kosovo Renzo Daviddi.
Taci submitted a completed questionnaire on Kosovo's trade relations with the EU. In its report for 2009, EC concluded that corruption is widely spread in many areas in Kosovo and that it still represents a disturbing factor in Kosovo. Daviddi said that the Kosovo institutions must deal with the challenges mentioned in the report from 2009, and particularly to continue the fight against corruption.

KOSOVO GOVERNMENT AND ZANIER DISAGREE
PRISTINA, April 19 (Tanjug) - Kosovo government representatives have rejected the allegations made by UNMIK Chief Lamberto Zannier on improvement of relations between the UN mission and Kosovo's institutions, the Albanian-language daily Zeri has reported.
Kosovo government spokesman Memlji Krasnici has stated that the relations between UNMIK and Kosovo institution were neither better nor worse. "UNMIK's presence here (in Kosovo) does not make sense after the independence proclamation," has said Krasnici. In an interview published by the Belgrade daily Politika, Krasnici has said that UNMIK and Pristina had gone through a difficult phase last year, but that it was followed by an improvement and that there is now understanding about the different character of the roles.
Krasnici also said that Kosovo maintains relations with the United Nations, but not necessarily through UNMIK. "However, every help from the United Nations, or UNMIK as a hostage of Resolution 1244, to Kosovo to become a member state of the UN will be welcome. But, it should also be clear to UNMIK that the mission is not competent for Kosovo's future," underscored Krasnici.