A signing ceremony on economic topics took place at White House on Friday with the participation of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an interview that  “We signed a bilateral agreement with the United States, this is not a trilateral agreement, which is very important. This is a bilateral agreement because the third party is not recognized in this agreement as a subject of international law", Vucic said, as broadcast by national TV.

Meanwhile, he said that there was no recognition of Kosovo, while pointing to Kosovo PM Avdullah Hoti's insistence on this: I can say that Albanians have opposed three things. First, they were ready to sign everything, provided that point 10 of the agreement is returned to the table, Hoti has insisted on this ten times. When we managed to remove point 10, Hoti said that even if I had remarks about Ujman and mini Schengen, I am ready to accept everything just to return point 10. That point 10 no longer exists. There is no mutual recognition. People in Serbia can breathe freely.

“Let me first say that I and the entire delegation are pleased with what we have achieved. If you allow me, I will analyze the whole deal once, and then point by point. I will tell what was not included in the agreement and tell people for what we fought there.

To begin with, today we have reached bilateral agreements with the US. So it is not a trilateral agreement, this is an important difference. We have not accepted the third party as a subject of international law. This has been very important to us. You will see that this fact becomes even more important when we reach a difficult point for us, which is not all about Kosovo. When we get to this point you will understand why it is so important that we have reached bilateral agreements. The signing of such an agreement with the US is of special importance to us, for which I thank the US President, Donald Trump, and I especially thank him for the long bilateral meeting with the Serbian delegation. I spent more than 15 minutes in the Oval Office alone with President Trump and his associates. So, we talked about many topics, starting from Serbia-America relations, to the election campaigns we are going through. President Trump has expressed the desire to visit Serbia, so as you have seen officially, I have repeated the invitation for such a visit, which would be the first visit of an American president after the visit of President Carter on the occasion of the funeral of Broz (Tito).

What is extremely important for us is that, through this bilateral agreement, we are regulating our relations, if not with the largest power in the world, with one of the two largest powers in the world anyway. We are dealing with the economy first of all and with some political issues, which are not painful for our country. Of course, at the moment when we achieved what was waiting for us, to be completely honest, since I am hearing different stories, fortunately Mr. Grenell had announced that he had prepared a surprise for the Serbian delegation, not wanting to indicate that it was a matter of mutual recognition, which was the content of point 10. And for the uninformed who said that there are three points, we still have 16 points. So, we have 16 points in the agreement, the Albanians have 16, but we do not have all the same points. We will come to this issue as well. The important thing in this agreement is, and I will tell you why we had discussions, that the Albanians were not unanimous, where we were not. However, a compromise has been reached, a genuine agreement. A genuine deal for Serbia, if I may put it this way. And you can see further, only for Serbia is planned the opening of the United States Development Fund Office in Belgrade. There is no such one for Prishtina, nor for any other place in the region. I'm proud of that. This will mean a strong signal to all credit bureaus, to all investors, both American and Western. It will be a sign of how much America is willing not only to deal with the Serbian market, but also to work for the advancement of the economic environment. This is great news. The Americans will work with us on important projects, such as the construction of the road to Pristina, which is very vital for Serbs living in Gracanica, the Nis highway, which we will work on together with the European Union. Then the Albanians will have to do their part, so the Serbs from Central Kosovo and Anamorava will have it significantly easier to come to Central Serbia and Belgrade. We agreed on the construction of the railway, how to connect that part, i,e., Pristina with Central Serbia again through Merdare. Why through Merdare? Because some wanted to take control of the Serbian railway stations, to build a railway through the north of Kosovo and for the Republic of Serbia to have no control over that railway. We managed to avoid this small trap. In these two points it is talked about how different American financial corporations and the American Exporting Bank will support various projects, ways of financing, etc., how we will increase the benefits and security at the Merdare crossing. We refer to Merdare as an administrative crossing point and I have to be just here the Americans also referred to it as a "crossing point facility", so they did not refer to it as a "border point", which is very important to us.

Then we also agreed on what one of our key points. The next point they opposed was mini Schengen. Actually, the arguments were very strange, they mixed it with “Shenzhen”, we could not understand this correctly in fact neither we, nor the Americans. Honestly. Minister Selimi said something to Grenell, but we did not understand anything. We also saw the misunderstanding in the eyes of the Americans. Neither did O’Brien understand anything. But that does not matter. What matters is that they are obliged in their agreement with the Americans to approach mini Schengen. Why is this important to us? It does not matter whose idea it is, it was ours, with this we will have the common market. There will be no more surprises with taxes and fees and so on. With this we will ensure the free movement of people, goods, capital, services. This is important first for the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija, and then for all our citizens, for all of Serbia. Our economy has lost half a billion euros in just one year because of the tax. There will be no such thing. We have the strongest economy, which is why mini-Schengen is important to us, even though others benefit from it. But we also feel good about others. But Serbia benefits a lot from this and I am happy that we have managed to push this forward. Albanians now have an obligation to accept such a thing. After that, only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro remain to approach mini Schengen, in order to reduce operating costs by 3.4 and later by 6.7 percent, giving additional impetus to our economic development. The next point is the mutual recognition of diplomas and professional certificates. At this point they resisted, refusing to accept the diplomas of the citizens of Mitrovica, but then they agreed. Then it is said that we will diversify the sources of electricity supply. This was in fact the continuation for which we have tried and we have succeeded in removing it from the agreement, because we had to declare from whom we will buy and what we will buy. We have refused such a thing. Further, the essential issue on which they have quarreled among themselves is Gazivoda, or Ujman as they say. It states that both sides agree to work together with the US Department of Energy and other US Government bodies on a feasibility study, which should work on allocating the energy resources of Lake Ujman. So, for people to understand why they were against and we were in favor, is because we do not receive any kilowatt of electricity from Ujman currently and thus, no matter how it is shared and in whatever way it is shared we will benefit. That is why they have quarreled fiercely among them, but I think that the allocation of resources is a fair option for both parties, for this we have insisted in Brussels and I will continue to insist in the talks that will be held there and see how it goes. But it is important for Americans to do the feasibility study and to be able to get our share, so it's even about electricity and water. Ujman in our country is deeper, so we have more water, but this water mainly goes to Metohija, Bardhi and Pristina. So very little water goes to the territories of Serbs, while we have no electricity at all. In conclusion, this point is phenomenal for us, while in Pristina, as we have seen, it has provoked quarrels. Next that is important for us, is the obligation we have taken for the implementation of the 5G network, I think that when we get there we will not have problems. The other one is about how to benefit from the exemption from entry visas to the US, and it is up to us to do all the security checks at our airports, so to do such a thing together with Pristina, thus as Poland can foresee visa waivers in the coming periods.

It is also important that both parties are obliged to promote the protection and free cultivation of various religions, interfaith communications, and in particular the protection of religious sites, as well as the implementation of court decisions regarding the properties of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Here we have the Holocaust. With this we have managed that the Americans guarantee us the inclusion of court decisions both for the property of the Patriarchate of Peja and the monastery of Decan, for which the Americans assured us that these will be safe properties for Serbian priests and Serbian believers. Further, in terms of missing and displaced persons we have the usual norm. Also, we will continue to decriminalize homosexuality, this is very important to them.

As for Hezbollah, we agreed to punish it, so we signed this on both sides. This has been the wish of the Americans. Our focus has been to get the best out of this deal for us. Then we agreed on the moratorium, which Pristina was against. They have said that because of this point they will face a government crisis, as for a year they will not be able to lobby for recognition and membership in international organizations. So they will not do that, Trump and Grenell assured us. While we pledged to stop the derecognition campaign also for a year. I dictated all the points to them, but there is also one last one, for which there has been great struggle. That is to say, the biggest fight has taken place around point 10, which talked about mutual recognition, but also about the point that I will talk about now. So our hosts had thought we should call on Israel and tell it to accept Kosovo as a state. Whereas, we have done as follows. We have said that we do not do such a thing, because in this way we will ruin our entire policy. They told us to let this be "sui generis", and we told you that it could not be so. We have proposed two agreements, we have said let Kosovo agree with Israel, while we will not support such a thing. But in the agreement we made we told Israel that if you will respect Serbia, we will move our embassy to you for a year. So we can not influence Israel, but we do not participate in their agreements with the Albanians. Thus was born the idea of ​​two agreements. So dear journalists and citizens, this is the deal. I am leaving the original agreement here while I will take the pencil because  Trump gave it to me. He also gave me a letter with a message, as well as the keys of the White House, and told me that I could enter whenever I wanted.

We had an important bilateral conversation. I think this did honor to Serbia and me personally and I think we are bringing good things for our country.

-Journalist: I wanted to ask you, half an hour before the signing of the agreement, there was great confusion whether the Pristina delegation would appear. They were 20 min late, I am informed that there have been major problems.

-Vucic: Yesterday we saw, for example, that the woman from Limaj's party did not say good morning to anyone, that is, neither to us nor to the Americans. Strange world! Selimi was very angry about Ujman and mini Schengen. Surely such a thing was passed on to Haradinaj, and he probably told him about my determination to remove point 10 from the agreement. So there were 20 of us when that happened, we even saw how Grenell changed his statement after.
 

-Journalist: It is a historic moment, also because you met with Trump. Can you tell us a little more about that? How was his reaction, what did you talk about?

-Vucic: It was a very cordial meeting. I was seated in a chair in front of him. Normally I tried to choose the words, to prepare in advance, but things almost never turn out as I think. Among other things, I spoke about the importance of today's agreement. I promise you that this is the best agreement we have made, that we have nothing to be ashamed of and afraid of, that we will always have this agreement as a reference and the things we have managed to obtain and we all remember that agreements we will refer to even when some others will not want to give us what we have received today.

-Journalist: How important is it that what was signed today does not remain only on paper?

Vucic: These are the things we have agreed on bilaterally with the Americans. Those who know even a little about the American state administration know that there are no games there. And if anyone thinks he can play with America, let him try! That is why the Albanians went crazy when they realized that I managed to remove point 10. So we agreed for them to speak first, their position was against Ujman and mini Schengen, then I stated that the talks will be interrupted if point 10 is not removed. A pause was requested. Then the point was removed. Afterwards, the Albanians said that they withdraw all the remarks about Ujman and mini Schengen, only to return point 10. But this has been indisputable. So this is great when you can reach genuine deals for your country. You have to understand, everything in this deal suits us. However, we must learn to not always see Pristina as our enemy, but to learn to establish relationships with those people. They see us as enemies, except here Skender Hyseni who knows how to give a smile. I do not want such relations to go on in the next 50 years. We need peace, stability and good relations with them. Although, we will always protect the interests of our country and Serbs of Kosovo.

-Journalist: How concretely have our maneuvering opportunities increased from this?

-Vucic: Our maneuvering space is small, so every time you do something small for your country you have done something big and bought time. So let no one think that this is over. Nothing is over. Albanians have memorized it and repeat the phrase "mutual recognition" everywhere. They repeat these words like parrots everywhere. Although the agreement has gone without these two words, it includes good economic things for both us and them.

-Journalist: In Serbia, people are asking, since you are so blatant, why did you not tell Grenell that he was lying when he said such a thing about you?

-Vucic: I do not know what he stated as untrue, but then he himself said that he wanted to surprise us. I continue to be transparent with my people who care about their country. While, I am aware that in the future we will face difficult things and situations. I want to tell the citizens of Serbia that these days have not been easy for us at all, difficult talks are waiting for us in Brussels regarding Zajednica. Thanking you for your Vucic, let me tell you that we here have fought hard for our country and I think we have done our job successfully.