Djurovic: Quint states pressuring Iceland to put Pristina's CoE bid on agenda

STRASBOURG - Serbia's Ambassador to the Council of Europe (CoE) Aleksandra Djurovic said on Tuesday in Strasbourg the Quint states were exerting great pressure on Iceland, which chairs the CoE Committee of Ministers, to put the so-called Kosovo's CoE membership bid on the body's agenda.

Djurovic said Serbia had succeeded in keeping that issue off the agenda of a Committee session scheduled for Wednesday.

"However, it is very uncertain what will happen next. There is a possibility of a country proposing at the start of the meeting that the item be added to the agenda. It can be added by simple majority, but no decision can be made on such an item because no draft decision has been distributed ahead of the meeting," Djurovic explained in a statement to Tanjug.

She noted that the Serbian delegation had several discussions with Iceland's ambassador in the past several days, and added that Iceland was under pressure over the issue, especially from Germany.

She said some countries intended to propose the holding of an extraordinary Committee meeting by the end of this week.

"We are still working on preventing that from happening," Djurovic said.

She said pressure over the issue had been stepped up ahead of next week's session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE.