Parliamentary Assembly

BELGRADE - Serbia has achieved an incredible success by thwarting Kosovo's back-door attempt to join the Council of Europe (CoE) but, unfortunately, the fight for our national interests does not end there, says Aleksandra Djurovic, who heads the Serbian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Photo: PPCOE / Wikipedia

BELGRADE - Serbia has achieved an incredible success by thwarting Kosovo's back-door attempt to join the Council of Europe (CoE) but, unfortunately, the fight for our national interests does not end there, says Aleksandra Djurovic, who heads the Serbian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

By preventing the attempt to Kosovo get Kosovo to the Council of Europe (CoE) through the back door, Serbia has achieved "incredible success."

However, this is not the end of the fight for our national interests, says Aleksandra Djurovic, the head of Serbia's delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Condolences have poured in for Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov who was assassinated by a police officer at an art exhibition in Ankara on Dec. 19.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson and the country's envoy to Ankara, Richard Moore, took to Twitter to denounce the killing, saying that their "thoughts are with his family."      

ST. PETERSBURG - Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic is in St. Petersburg for a plenary meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which she is attending in her capacity as president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.

Cyprus Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides insisted Friday that reunification talks with Turkish Cypriots "have not collapsed."

Addressing the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Nicosia Friday, Kasoulides clarified, however, that a multi-party summit cannot go ahead unless Greek and Turkish Cypriots agree on the fundamental issues of territory and property.

The July 15 coup attempt was one of the clearest examples of an attack on democracy in recent decades, a senior European politician said on Nov. 21.

Christine Muttonen, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was among the first to condemn the coup, issuing a statement the following day.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg hailed Turkish democracy and the nation on Nov. 21 following an attempted coup over the summer while noting the importance of the rule of law.

Macedonian Civil rights activists and judicial experts have called the election of Jovan Ilievski as Macedonia's judge in the European Court of Human Rights a serious blunder.

His many critics at home say he kept the prosecution system under government control and is unfit for the post.

Kosovo officials have hailed Tuesday's decision of the Council of Europe to admit Kosovo from January 2017 onwards to sessions of the Parliamentary Assembly, PACE, as a diplomatic triumph and a step towards full membership of the organization.

From January, Kosovo representatives will be taking part in sessions dealing with  EU-Kosovo relations as observers and with no right to vote.