The new high representative of the European Union (EU) for foreign policy and security, Kaja Kalas, said today in Brussels that the only way to EU membership is the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina.
"The only way to EU membership is the normalization of their relations, based on the Ohrid Agreement," Kalas wrote on the Ix platform, where she posted photos of separate meetings with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti.
Kalas added that she welcomes "the readiness for full cooperation after the recent terrorist attack. The perpetrators must face justice."
In the conversation with Kalas, Kurti requested that Serbia hand over Milan Radoičić to the Kosovo authorities as the organizer of the attack on Banjska on September 24 last year, Beta agency reported.
After the meeting, he stated that he is optimistic and that Kalas is "at the right time and in the right place" and that the region will benefit from it.
He said that they discussed "the issues of Kosovo's progress in terms of European integration", but also, as he stated, "relations with our northern neighbor".
"I emphasized that we had unprecedented economic growth and democratic progress in independent Kosovo and that at the same time we managed the most serious security challenges, the most serious threats that resulted in the murder of Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku in Banjska," he said.
As he said, "the main criminal in the gang that did this is at large in Serbia".
"We asked, as at every other meeting, to hand over Radoičić to the Kosovo authorities, because the Prosecutor's Office has a 160-page indictment against him and his group of over 40 people," Kurti said.
He emphasized that the meeting also discussed the attack on the Ibar-Lepenac canal, in the north of Kosovo.
"Our authorities did a professional job and we have to take additional measures to prevent the same thing from happening again," he said.
He stated that "the investigation is ongoing", and that there were arrests and seized material.
Vučić said last night in Brussels that Kaja Kalas is expected to visit Belgrade in February, reports Beta. "It is expected that she (Kaja Kalas) will come to Serbia in February," Vučić told reporters after a meeting with a high-ranking EU official. According to him, the meeting was "open, honest, but not easy", because Kaja Kalas insisted on greater compliance of Serbia with EU policy, such as the introduction of sanctions against Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. "I answered in accordance with the politics and interests of Serbia," Vučić wrote earlier yesterday in a post on Instagram.
Vučić said that in addition to Kaja Kalas, he spoke with the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, James O'Brien, about the situation in Kosovo and that he told him that Serbia is also conducting an investigation into the incident in Zubin Potok.
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