Serbia, Kosovo to Meet Next Week on Brussels Accord

The prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo will meet in Brussels on May 21 for follow-up talks on an EU-brokered deal aimed at normalizing their ties, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's office said Tuesday.

Ashton "invited Prime Minister (Ivaca) Dacic and Prime Minister (Hashim) Thaci for a meeting next week, on 21 May, in Brussels, to discuss the joint steps they need to take for the implementation of the April agreement.

"A swift implementation is of crucial importance and I am very much looking forward to discussing it with both prime ministers," she said.

The meeting will come just over a month after the two agreed on normalizing relations between Belgrade and its former southern province which declared independence in 2008.

The landmark deal, which is opposed by some of the 40,000 Serbs living in northern Kosovo close to the border with Serbia, also opens the path for Belgrade and Pristina to move closer to eventual EU membership.

Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Sunday urged Kosovo Serbs to accept the agreement, while admitting it was not ideal but would allow Serbia "to survive, to exist and remain united in the search for a path to a better future".

Serbia lost control over its former southern province in June 1999 after a NATO bombing campaign halted late strongman Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown against the pro-independence ethnic Albanian majority and ousted Serbian armed forces from Kosovo.