Belgrade Sees US as Important Pillar Amid Great Power Competition

Two decades after a U.S.-led bombing campaign on the Serbian capital, Belgrade, that helped to end the Kosovo war, a top Serbian official says his country is eager to return to the friendly relations that preceded the war – and improve on them.

Marko Djuric, the Serbian ruling party’s second-ranking official and his country’s ambassador to Washington, told VOA that  the U.S. involvement in the 1990s conflict over Kosovo’s rejection of Serbian rule was “our only rough patch in relations with the United States.” "Two decades onwards, I think it is very much safe to say that we’re well beyond this and that we’re looking not only to put the relations where they always normally used to be, but even to boost it further,” Djuric said during an interview at his official residence in Washington. Relations between Belgrade and Washington have been on the mend since the administration of former President Donald Trump brokered an economic normalization agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, which was concluded at the White House on September 4, 2020.