Nikolic: Assessments of progress not correct

Mr. Biden was not informed about the details of the Resolution the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia recently adopted, Nikolic said after the meeting with the U.S. vice president in Rome. The talks were exceptionally useful, Nikolic said. The U.S. vice president said that he feels obliged to help resolve this problem because the U.S. recognised the independence of Kosovo, the Serbian president said. The meeting between Nikolic and Biden was the first meeting between a Serbian president and a U.S. vice president in the past four years, and the talks lasted for around one hour, more than was envisaged in the protocol. “The inauguration of new Pope Francis was an opportunity for me to have several bilateral meetings, including the talks with the U.S. vice president at his invitation as perhaps the most important one, and I believe it became clear that certain information arriving in the U.S. did not correspond to the actual situation in the Belgrade-Pristina relations and the level or progress made in the dialogue was not assessed correctly,” Nikolic said. Nikolic noted that he said during the talks with Biden that many countries recognised Kosovo's independence as a result of the first recognition which came from the U.S., but he added that Serbia has only friends in the world and that it regards countries and nations according to the degree of their willingness to cooperate with Serbia honestly, openly, despite all the limitations. “In the future, the administrations of the U.S. and Serbia will maintain more frequent high-level contacts because we all want to solve this problem and ensure a better life for Serbian citizens, including those in Kosovo and the Serb community which will get assistance both from Serbia and the EU,” Nikolic said.