Scheffer met Serbian President Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic and Defence Minister Zoran Stankovic, the main topic of the talks being the issue of Kosovo.
The position of NATO allies on support to the process headed by Martti Ahtisaari is well known. I hope that talks on Ahtisaari's document on March 10 will be positive and that, if the problem is transferred to the jurisdiction of the Security Council, it will result in a Security Council resolution, Scheffer said.
President Tadic said during talks with Scheffer he expected NATO to ensure absolute security for the Serb population in Kosovo, while Kostunica's office issued a statement saying that "Ahtisaari's mandate was to find a compromise solution for Kosovo's future status, rather than to raise the issue of Serbia's status as a state and propose robbing it of 15 percent of its territory". Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic said that any decision that would promote "the idea of a new Albanian state could considerably erode the sincere support of most Serbian citizens for speedy integration with the EU and Euro-Atlantic associations".
During talks with Defence Minister Zoran Stankovic, Scheffer said that NATO would not decrease its military presence in Kosovo and readiness to respond promptly to any attempt at destabilisation.
By assuming obligations in efforts to solve the two burning issues in Serbia today - constructiveness in the process of defining Kosovo's future status and dealing with the Hague issue - the Defence Ministry and the Serbian army will affirm themselves as credible partners, Stankovic said.
After meeting the Serbian state officials, Scheffer held a lecture for representatives of state institutions and NGOs in the parliament headquarters, stating that the most important message he had brought to Belgrade was that NATO had not forgotten about Serbia's obligation to cooperate with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.