Sinisa Mali, Serbia's Finance Minister, said Belgarde "got the worst paper ever, with a part about the mutual recognition between Kosovo and Serbia during the meeting at the White House, and that President Aleksandar Vucic was under immense pressure, but the US President Donald Trump's special envoy tweeted it was not true.
“There are 16 points on the document, ten of which mean the mutual recognition,” Mali said, during the break in the White House meeting, as quoted by Serbia's state Tanjug news agency.
Not true. https://t.co/oDyaqs7ZvJ
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) September 3, 2020
He said that the pressure on Belgrade was enormous and that 20 participants, not only the Albanian delegation, “are very aggressive at every word from our delegation members.”
Mali reiterated Belgrade delegation came to talk about the economic issues, but many others, including Vucic, said they would not be surprised if the political topic would also be on the agenda.
Vucic and Kosovo's Prime Minister Avdulah Hoti are in Washington as a part if the Belgarde – Pristina dialogue on the normalization of relations.
Hoti has said that all the topics had one goal – to end the dialogue with mutual recognition, while Vucic said: “there is no surrender.”
The talks at the White House are mediated by Grenell and the National Security advisor Robert O'Brien.
He later tweeted some progress reached during the morning meeting.
“The leaders of #Serbia and #Kosovo are already making progress. Our conversations this morning centered on bolstering economic ties and #EconomicNormalization. Looking forward to further discussion this afternoon.” – NSA Robert O’Brien pic.twitter.com/IiinYFzK2n
— NSC 45 Archived (@WHNSC45) September 3, 2020
The meetings are supposed to last two days and there were speculations that Trump might join them.
Vucic said if he was right about the surprising issues that might be presented to Belgarde, he would not meet the US President.
