New round of Belgrade-Pristina talks begins in Brussels

BRUSSELS - A new round of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina begun in Brussels Monday, and its main themes are judiciary and the setting up of the Community of Serb municipalities (ZSO) in Kosovo-Metohija (KiM).

European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who facilitates the talks, first met with Kosovo Prime Minister Hasim Taci, and is to meet with the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, Ivica Dacic and Aleksandar Vucic, respectively, which should be followed by a trilateral meeting.

Taci said before the meeting with Ashton that he expects the agreement on the judiciary, which has already been reached in principle, to be finalized today.

He added that to the ZSO must be set up within the framework of “Kosovo’s constitution.”

Ahead of the meeting, outgoing Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic announced “difficult talks” and pointed out that they could touch on Kosovo’s new electoral law, or the presence, in numbers, of Serb representatives in Pristina’s parliament and other institutional bodies in KiM.

The first topic of the meeting should be the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court in Kosovska Mitrovica, which Pristina wants to include a total of seven municipalities, three of which are populated with an Albanian majority.

Belgrade believes that the proposal is not in the spirit of the Brussels agreement, as the ethnic structure of judges and prosecutors of such a court would be a majority Albanian one.

Another unresolved issue is the civil protection in the Kosovo north, currently under the control of local authorities, which Pristina seeks to become part of the Kosovo system under the auspices of the Kosovo Security Force.

The Serbian side is...