Serbia's state leaders to hold meeting on Kosovo

As Tanjug has learned from sources close to the government, the meeting will be attended by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, Prime Minister Ivica Dacic, First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, Adviser to the Serbian president Marko Djuric and Director of the government's Office for Kosovo Aleksandar Vulin. They already had a meeting Friday, at which they stressed that the government is standing firm when it comes its position on the issue of Kosovo and the dialogue with Pristina. The meeting's participants urged the international community to exert pressure on Pristina to compromise as this is the only way a solution can be reached. Djuric told reporters after the meeting that the Belgrade-Pristina talks have reached their "key crossroads." Serbia's commitment to reaching a compromise will not be called into question, but the Serbian side cannot be expected to be the only one making concessions, Djuric said. Prime Minister Dacic said three days ago that big problems are on the horizon in the talks with Pristina, adding that he does not know what to talk about with Taci in Brussels on March 4. He recalled that in the previous round of talks they reached an agreement in principle under which the problem of parallel institutions in Kosovo could be solved by establishing a community of Serb municipalities. The Kosovo authorities, however, will not let the community of Serb municipalities to have any executive powers, and "in general, they do not want to accept anything they do not have to, especially if nobody is forcing them to," said the Serbian prime minister. Dacic noted that it takes two, and in this case even three, to make a compromise, since the dialogue is mediated by the European Union.