MP: USA finished deal in Macedonia and Montenegro; it’s Serbia’s turn now

The USA has no new plan for Kosovo, Chairman of the Serbian National Assembly Committee on Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun has announced on March 13 on the eve of US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell's visit to Belgrade within his trip to Balkan countries. As Drecun believes, Mitchell came to the Balkans to demonstrate persistence of the Washington policy in the region: the Kosovo issue will still be treated one-sidedly, through the lens of its geopolitical confrontation with Russia. Evidently, there is no «US plan for Kosovo» Serbian media were writing about, Drecun said.

«The USA has finished its deal in Macedonia and Montenegro; it’s Serbia’s turn now. They need to weaken Russia’s influence, the easiest way to do so is to use the Kosovo issue. The bad thing is that the region is getting involved in a geopolitical confrontation, it is not in the Balkans' interest to be on the firing line,» Drecun said on air of state RTS television.

According to the MP, during the visit to Pristina, Mitchell showed persistence of the US policy towards Kosovo. He mentioned a statement made by the US diplomat that nobody has a veto right regarding transformation of the Kosovo Security Force into a full-fledged army and that it was necessary to continue the normalization of the relations between Belgrade and Pristina. Meanwhile, Mitchell did not mention necessity to establish the Community of Serb Municipalities, Drecun said.

He noted that «all US officials make statements on Serbia’s relations with Russia, it is a kind of mantra for them.» According to him, Serbia, being a small country, must abstain from harsh comments, but in the future one should expect that the Washington rhetoric will strengthen.

In December 2017, Kosovo «prime minister» Ramush Haradinaj called transformation of the Kosovo Security Force into a full-fledged army as one of the government’s priorities in 2018. As Haradinaj stressed, the transformation is carried out in «close cooperation with Kosovo’s strategic partners that guarantees full support to transforming the Security Force into a professional army meeting NATO standards.»