Eurasia Press & News
Serbian President Boris Tadić says that he and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg agreed that “information that Bosnia is threatened by war” was untrue.
“This isn’t about any sort of war, the situation is being overdramatized, I don’t know to what end. The problems should be identified through a rational and democratic dialog of the three peoples,” Tadić said in Medveđa, southern Serbia, this Thursday.
Tadić met with the American official in Belgrade late on Wednesday.
He said that the meeting with Steinberg was “friendly and open”, and that they discussed the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
Tadić stated that Belgrade has its legitimate national interests which it does not intend to relinquish.
“Besides the good will to cooperate with the EU, U.S. and other countries, Serbia also has its red lines and one of them is related to Kosovo and Metohija. I said that Serbia neither recognizes Kosovo and Metohija (as independent) now, nor will it ever do that, and that we are devoted to the idea of continued talks about Kosovo and Metohija, to find a compromise solution which does not imply that one side is the winner and the other the loser,” he explained.
According to the news agency reports, Tadić said that Steinberg “did not state the U.S. position regarding the issue of Kosovo”, during the meeting last night.
“As for Bosnia-Herzegovina, I said that Serbia does not support any partition of that country, I think that it would jeopardize regional stability. Serbia remains strongly devoted to the Dayton Accords, which means that everything that the three peoples and the two entities agree on is acceptable for Serbia too, but solutions cannot be imposed,” the president pointed out.
He added that he had received assurances from the U.S. official that his country did not wish to conduct a policy of imposing solutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but rather to encourage the dialog and political processes.
