BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Joe Biden is scheduled to be in Serbia and Kosovo this week for his final visit as U.S. vice president to the Balkans, where he played an important role in ending the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s.
Biden plans to be in Belgrade on Tuesday for a meeting with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and President Tomislav Nikolic, both members of Serbia’s government during a bloody crackdown against Albanian separatists in 1999.
The vice president’s visit underscores the U.S. government’s desire to maintain influence in the Balkans as Moscow works to keep Serbia – one of Russia’s last remaining ex-communist allies in the region – within its fold.
The trip also highlights Washington’s worry about the slow pace of regional reconciliation 17 years after a U.S.-led NATO air war stopped the Serbian offensive in Kosovo.
Biden will be in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, on Tuesday night. In Pristina, he is expected to urge Kosovo leaders to implement an EU-sponsored agreement from 2015 that was meant to normalize relations between the breakaway state and Serbia.