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| Philip Kosnett (archive) |
"First, I expect constant speculation until the start of the meeting on Saturday, but also after the meeting. But, as my colleague, Ambassador Grenell, explained, we expect that the focus of this meeting will be on economic cooperation between Kosovo and Serbia, which will benefit the citizens of both countries, but also the region. We have often said that we think it is important that the focus of the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia is on what ordinary citizens benefit from,” said the ambassador.
In an interview with Rubicon, Kosnett added that the end of the negotiation process would result in mutual recognition, and insisted that the United States was not pursuing the idea of exchanging territories. "Any kind of comprehensive agreement between Kosovo and Serbia must have the broad support of the citizens of both countries; I have said before that there is very little interest in Kosovo for the exchange of territories, and Ambassador Grenell has made it very clear that this is not an idea pursued by the United States of America and has never been the goal of the Trump administration. He added.
The Pristina-Belgrade dialogue issue seems to have turned into a race between the US and the EU. The European Union's special envoy for the issue, Miroslav Lajcak, said he expected the talks to continue in July in Brussels. He made the remarks after meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade, who added that Serbia expects dialogue with Kosovo to continue as soon as possible, perhaps next month, but states that it is up to Lajçak to set a date.