The Serbian government on Wednesday made public its decision to submit to the UN General Assembly a draft resolution on Kosovo as agreed with all 27 member-countries of the European Union.
Serbia agreed the text of the draft resolution with all 27 EU countries, and the document does not recognise Kosovo as an independent state, the Serbian government said in a statement.
It described the document as a compromise reached by Serbia and the EU, saying that it was entirely in line with the Serbian parliament's decision on the matter.
The Serbian parliament in July expressed its support to the government for its further international activity, following an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the legality of Kosovo's decision to declare independence from Serbia, which said that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence did not violate international law.
"The agreed text completes the proceedings before the ICJ in The Hague and calls for dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, which is in line with Serbia's position in principle that a mutually acceptable solution to the Kosovo issue, to be confirmed by the UN General Assembly, can be found only through talks," the government said in the statement.
Serbian President Boris Tadic said that the new draft resolution was the result of cooperation and of a consensus between differing positions of the countries that had recognised Kosovo's independence and those that had not, and of Serbia.
Tadic held talks with the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, in Brussels on Tuesday evening.
Quoting unnamed sources close to the EU and to the government in Belgrade, the Belgrade press on Wednesday reported that during the talks, the EU offered a formulation saying that it was willing to provide "good services" to launch dialogue for the sake of a European future of both Serbia and Kosovo.
The same sources said that Tadic was asked to remove from the Serbian draft resolution the term "unilateral secession".
In late July, Serbia submitted to the UN General Assembly a draft resolution which said that Kosovo's unilateral secession was not an acceptable way of dealing with territorial issues.
The UN General Assembly is expected to discuss the resolution on September 9.
