PRISTINA: Kosovo and Serbia were set to exchange liaison officers who will help monitor implementation of an EU-brokered deal on normalising ties between the two sides, Kosovo's officer said on Sunday.
"As of tomorrow (Monday) I will start to work in my office in Belgrade," Kosovo liaison officer Lulzim Peci told AFP.
The move "will contribute to improving ties between Belgrade and Pristina since, for the first time, liaison officers will communicate directly with the government in the capital where they will be sitting," he added.
Serbia's liaison officer Dejan Pavicevic will also start his mission in Pristina on Monday.
"I already started to learn Albanian. We have to talk, we have to continue the dialogue," Pavicevic told a local television station recently.
He stressed that he would be the "first Serbian official stationed in Pristina" since Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008.
The two officers will have their bureaus in the European Union's respective missions in the two capitals.
Their deployment is part of the implementation of the deal aimed at normalising ties signed in April by Belgrade and Pristina.
Serbian authorities began implementing the accord on Friday by starting to shut down their offices in northern Kosovo that have been linked with Serbia's administration.
The deal stipulates that minority ethnic Serbs will have a regional police commander in the areas where they make up a majority of the population in mostly ethnic Albanian Kosovo.
It sets up a certain level of autonomy for some 40,000 ethnic Serbs living in northern Kosovo, along the border with Serbia proper over which Pristina has almost no control.
Although the plan was approved by the Serbian government and parliament, some Kosovo Serbs have opposed it, rejecting acceptance of the authorities in Pristina.
Pavicevic is convinced that Kosovo Serbs will agree to cooperate with him.
"If they do not want to speak direcly with Kosovo institutions, they can talk to me and I would be their connection," Pavicevic said.
"My doors will be open to everyone all the time."
The implementation of the accord is the key condition for bids by Kosovo and Serbia to move closer to the European Union.
Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs refuse to recognise the 2008 independence of Kosovo, although more than 90 countries, including the United States and all but five EU member states, have done so.
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