Servië tegen een einde aan Kosovo-besprekingen in december (en)
Serbia has reiterated calls on the EU not to set a December deadline for ending talks on the future status of its breakaway province of Kosovo.
"The danger is there. With a set time and a default position that amounts to their maximalist demands, what interest could the Kosovo Albanians have in negotiating in good faith?" Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic told the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg on Thursday (4 October).
"As paradoxical as it may seem, without a deadline, minds in Belgrade as well as Pristina will focus on the means to reach a negotiated solution", he added.
Diplomats from the EU, Russia and the US - known as the international troika - are on 10 December to submit a report to the UN on the state of the Kosovo situation.
Pristina has indicated it will proclaim unilateral independence if no progress is achieved by then, and called on the US and the EU for support.
But while the US has given signs it may back independence, EU member states are still divided on the issue. Some would support it - such as France or the UK, while others like Germany or Spain would be more reluctant to do so.
The Serbian call comes at the same time as a report by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, which stated that 10 December is an important deadline as "a further prolongation of the future-status process puts at risk the achievements of the United Nations in Kosovo since June 1999 [the end of the war]".
If the momentum is not kept, "there is a real risk of progress beginning to unravel and of instability in Kosovo and the region", the UN chief said.
Meanwhile, Kosovo's public television on Wednesday evening (3 October) showed armed and masked men of the outlawed Albanian National Army (ANA), claiming they are "ready and aware" to fight Serbia over the province's independence, Reuters reports.
The West seems not to exclude the possibility of resurging violence in the region, as the US has asked Croatia if it could "protect NATO's borders" by taking possible refugees into its territory, according to Croatian daily Jutarnji List.
Zagreb, which has accepted, is also "expected to monitor its borders and prevent refugees from crossing into the EU", the paper writes.
Direct talks between Belgrade and Pristina last week did not lead to a breakthrough on the issue and Serbian and Kosovar Albanian leaders are to meet again next Sunday (14 October) in Brussels.