Serb president delays Kosovo deadline to give a better shot

Bloomberg

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said a deal with Kosovo, the biggest hurdle to his country joining the European Union, isn’t imminent as both sides remain far apart, forcing him to delay his goal to unveil the proposal within weeks.
Vucic said more time was needed to get world powers — including the EU and the US — to pressure Kosovo into agreeing to concessions, so he can present the deal to his Balkan nation of 7 million people without feeling “humiliated.”
The president last year started an “internal dialogue” over Kosovo, whose 2008 split from Serbia followed the NATO bombing campaign that forced out late Serb President Slobodan Milosevic’s forces in 1999. The deal is crucial for the stability for the western Balkans, repeatedly torn apart by bloody wars.
“It’s better to wait,” Vucic said in an interview in the Presidential Palace in Belgrade, the capital. “No more deadlines. But I thought we were closer” to a solution “than we are.”
In Serbia, where the 48-year-old president’s party controls nearly two-thirds of parliament, most citizens would prefer a frozen conflict to a resolution, a situation that would pose a threat that the region can’t afford, he said. “If you have a frozen conflict, someone will defreeze it,” Vucic said. “And that will be the end of normal life for the entire region.”