AlHijjah 3, 1433, Oct 19, 2012, SPA -- The prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo met for the first time on Friday in hopes of thawing relations and opening the way for progress in their respective bids for European Union membership, and they agreed on further talks soon, according to Reuters. The EU wants Serbia and Kosovo to cooperate better on issues such as security and trade even though Belgrade refuses to recognise the sovereignty of its former ethnic Albanian majority province, which declared independence in 2008. But talks on cooperation, mediated by the EU, have been slow to show sufficient results, costing Serbia an opportunity to start accession negotiations with the 27-nation bloc this year. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said after hosting Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic for over an hour in Brussels on Friday that the talks were held in a "constructive atmosphere". "We agreed to continue the dialogue for the normalisation of relations between the two sides and both committed to working together," she said in a statement. "We will meet again soon." There was no immediate comment from Thaci or Dacic. The meeting marked the first official talks between a serving Serbian government leader and his Kosovo opposite. Earlier this year former Serbian president Boris Tadic briefly met Thaci at the sidelines of a forum in Croatia. -- SPA
