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The US Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, James O'Brien, will visit Belgrade this Saturday, for meetings with the leaders of Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic and Speaker of Parliament Ana Bernabic, the Serbian Presidency announced on Friday.
The senior American official will meet first with Bërnabić and then with President Vučić on Saturday morning.
During an interview for Pink television earlier on Friday, the Serbian president described the upcoming meeting with the American official as a "difficult and important conversation".
O'Brien's visit to Serbia comes at a time when official Belgrade criticized the West after the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe supported Kosovo's membership in this organization, despite Serbia's efforts to prevent this and despite the Ohrid agreement, according to which , Serbia pledged that it would not hinder Kosovo's membership in international institutions
Kosovar authorities accused Serbia on April 17 of detaining more than 1,400 Kosovars for more than 20 hours at its border points with Croatia and Hungary, who were transiting through Serbia.
Serbia denied the allegations, saying the delays were caused by additional security measures at the border, and that the movement of Kosovar citizens "has not been restricted".
The Government of Kosovo described these actions as Serbia's revenge against the support from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for Kosovo's membership in this organization.
The US Department of State and the European Union reacted to this, criticizing Serbia for violating the agreement on free movement between the two countries.
On Friday, Vucic described as "hypocritical" the reaction of the international community regarding the detention of Kosovo citizens in Serbia.
His visit also comes a day before elections to oust Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo, which could be boycotted by the Serb population there.
Lista Serbe, the largest party of Kosovo Serbs, which enjoys the support of official Belgrade, has called on Serbs to boycott the April 21 elections.
Meanwhile, Serbia and Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina are campaigning against a draft resolution being discussed at the United Nations to declare July 11 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide.
Vučić said last week that Serbia will fight against the adoption of this resolution at the UN, which would blame the Serbs. He fears the resolution could create the basis for Bosniaks to seek war reparations from Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs' ally during the war.
The parliament of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina approved a report on Thursday, which states that the killing of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war does not constitute genocide.
The UN General Assembly is expected to vote on this draft resolution at the beginning of May.
In 2007, the International Court of Justice declared the crime of genocide in Srebrenica, in which more than 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were killed in 1995 by the Republika Srpska Army. The massacre of Srebrenica has been described as the worst in Europe since the Second World War./ REL
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