Normalizing relations with Kosovo is unrealistic due to its government, Serbia's president said Monday.
"The essential problem is neither what anyone is going to say nor what anyone is going to implement. Whether we can normalize relations with the Kosovo Albanians is much more important. I am afraid that this is not realistic with this kind of government in Pristina," the capital, Aleksandar Vucic said in Verona, Italy ahead of a European Union-mediated normalization meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.
Speaking to Serbian's Pink TV, he predicted that the normalization talks would be "torturous" and that he is not optimistic about progress.
The main negotiators of Belgrade and Pristina for the dialogue, Petar Pekovic and Besnik Bisljimi, will meet in Brussels Tuesday in order to take the first step toward implementation of an agreement for the normalization of ties.
Tuesday's meeting will be the first within the dialogue under EU auspices since Vucic and Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti reached an agreement on how to implement the EU-backed deal in the last round of talks on March 18 in North Macedonia.
The agreement came after 12 hours of talks between Kurti, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, and EU officials.
The EU announced on Feb. 27 that Serbia and Kosovo had agreed to sign a proposal to normalize ties after a meeting in Brussels.
According to EU officials, the parties later agreed how to implement the agreement.
The EU-led Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, launched in 2011, aims to find a mutually agreeable solution for disputes in the framework of a legally binding agreement.
Following a flareup in border tensions last summer, in September Miroslav Lajcak, the EU special representative for the talks, presented the bloc's latest proposal on normalizing.
The EU requires that Kosovo and Serbia reach a final agreement and resolve disputes to progress in their integration into the bloc.
Most UN member states, including the US, UK, France, Germany and Türkiye, recognized Kosovo as a separate country after it declared independence from Serbia 15 years ago.
Serbia continues to regard it as its territory.
Vucic said last October that Germany and France had offered to expedite Serbia's EU membership process if it recognized Kosovo's independence and allowed it to become a member of international organizations.
According to the leaked proposal, Kosovo should also allow the establishment of a union of Serbian municipalities in the country's north, where many ethnic Serbs live.
EU officials hope to complete negotiations on the plan this spring, with Brussels facilitating the talks.
