Lajcak: Joint commission on missing persons to meet soon

BRUSSELS - The EU special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue Miroslav Lajcak welcomed on Wednesday the conclusion of negotiations on operationalising a declaration on missing persons as an "important step" and announced that a joint commission on missing persons would meet soon.

"Very happy that we successfully concluded the negotiations on operationalising the 2023 Declaration on Missing Persons. An important step towards finally bringing closure to families. We will soon host the first meeting of the Joint Commission," Lajcak wrote in a post on X.

He added that Tuesday's meeting in Brussels with the chief negotiators of Belgrade and Pristina, Petar Petkovic and Besnik Bislimi, had addressed steps laid out in 2024 EU Council Conclusions to implement the Ohrid Agreement.

He thanked Petkovic and Bislimi "for our good cooperation and the in-depth and constructive trilateral meeting" and added that he had reiterated to both parties that normalisation of relations meant EU integration and that there was "no decoupling between the two."