Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic on Wednesday rejected a possibility of an agreement on good neighbourly relations being taken as a starting point for further dialogue with Kosovo, the public broadcaster RTS said.
Speaking ahead of a meeting on Thursday with the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, Nikolic told RTS that it could not be expected of him to participate in talks on good neighbourly relations with Kosovo as a state, but on how to ensure "a good life in Kosovo, peace and security, and investment."
"Mrs Ashton knows that she does not have in me an interlocutor for good relations with Kosovo as a state," he said.
When asked to explain what he meant by "direct talks with Pristina on the highest level", which he had proposed in his address to the UN General Assembly, Nikolic said that it meant that it would not be possible for the country's leadership to "hide behind" an agreement reached by lower-level officials but that talks should involve "the Government, the President and the National Assembly."
Nikolic repeated that he would not sit at a negotiating table with Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci as long as there were reasonable grounds for suspicion that he had been directly involved in war crimes against Serbs or until an international investigation proved otherwise.
