Dacic to visit Pristina as OSCE chair in March

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs and OSCE Chairman Ivica Dacic visited the OSCE Mission in Belgrade on Thursday and announced that he will also visit the missions in Skopje and Podgorica in February, while he would pay a visit to the OSCE mission in Pristina in March.

The OSCE Mission in Belgrade is the first one to receive Dacic's visit in keeping with the previously issued announcement according to which the foreign minister would visit all OSCE missions in the Western Balkans.

Speaking about the visit to the OSCE mission in Pristina, the Serbian foreign minister said that the visit will not have a status character.

Addressing a joint news conference with Head of the OSCE Mission in Belgrade Peter Burkhard, Dacic announced that he will head the delegation of OSCE international organisation and added that his visit will not have anything to do with the status issue, nor will it entail any change in Serbia's stand.

Dacic added that his meeting with OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and Special Representative for the Western Balkans Ambassador Gerard Stoudmann produced an agreement on a joint visit to Pristina and the local institutions.

Dacic said that as OSCE chair, he will insist on regional cooperation and de-escalation of conflicts with regard to the crisis in Ukraine.

As the OSCE chair, Serbia will focus on the promotion of regional cooperation instead of conflicts, and the search for common points of intersection, without insisting constantly on the points of divergence, Dacic said.

Burkhard said that his talks with Dacic on Thursday covered the implementation of the OSCE Mission mandate, and expressed satisfaction over the fact that many of the priorities Serbia has announced...