Drecun: Sorensen can try to revive dialogue, Lajcak leaving unresolved issues behind

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian parliamentary committee on defence and interior affairs Milovan Drecun said on Wednesday Danish diplomat Peter Sorensen, the most likely candidate to succeed the outgoing EU special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue Miroslav Lajcak on February 1, could try to revive the dialogue and be more agile.

"Miroslav Lajcak is leaving unresolved issues behind, the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities is the key matter. We now have a situation where that issue is peripheral and where the priority issues for Pristina are two points from the agreement on the path to normalisation that are unacceptable to us," Drecun told the RTS.

He said that, in his opinion, the agreement remained a dead letter.

"That agreement essentially contains cancer. And that cancer means that 'Kosovo' is being treated like a state and, if such a situation occurs, it will not be possible to implement any agreement as that is unacceptable to Belgrade. Besides, we do not have a deescalation of the crisis in the north (of Kosovo-Metohija), and Lajcak has left it to Pristina to unilaterally impose, to the detriment of the Serbs, all other issues that should have been resolved in the dialogue," Drecun said.

Speaking about his expectations from Sorensen, Drecun said mediators did not have much manoeuvring space.

"The autonomy and independence of mediators like Lajcak as well as Sorensen is questionable. They do not have much manoeuvring freedom," he said.

Drecun said Sorensen could try to revive the dialogue technically and be more agile.

"But, in my opinion, the key issue is what his position on Pristina's unilateral moves and all the things that are thwarting a continuation of dialogue will be," he added, noting that Sorensen would act in line with the defined EU policy.