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| Vucic in an interview to Prva |
"They will try to give us guarantees for EU membership but on condition that we recognize Kosovo and they offer special status to Serbs in certain areas," the Serbian president said, stressing that "I would then ask the citizens of Serbia."
He said he had put forward his idea three years ago but was not accepted by Serbs, referring to his idea of "putting a border between Serbs and Albanians", which meant the partition of Kosovo.
In the summer of 2018, Serbian President Vucic and Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci talked about the ideas of "border correction" or "border crossing", which analysts have interpreted as territorial swap goals.
In November 2018, the government of former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj imposed a 100 percent tariff on goods from Serbia in response to the Serbian campaign against Kosovo citizenship.
Former Prime Minister Haradinaj has subsequently emphasized on several occasions that tariffs prevented the formalization of Kosovo's partition.
The ideas for border crossing also prompted separate reactions in the international stage. Some of the big EU countries have opposed these ideas because they believe could trigger chain reactions in the Balkan region that have not yet been renewed by the bloody wars of the last century.
The United States says that both sides must reach a normalization agreement that "essentially has to be mutual recognition".
In the fall of 2018, Belgrade withdrew from EU-mediated talks conditional on their continued tariff lifting, but the Haradinaj government rejected the international pressure to lift the tax.
Calls for tariff lifts have been increased following the formation of the new government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who has pledged to do so but replacing tariffs with full reciprocity measures with Serbia.
In addition to calls to lift tariffs from Pristina, the United States has called on Belgrade to cease its campaign to withdraw recognition of Kosovo's independence.
US Ambassador Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump's special envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia peace talks, brokered two agreements for less than a month on the airline, the railway and the highways between the two countries.
The agreements were signed without the presence of the European Union, which is expected next month to appoint a special envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia talks.