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PM: Serbia Wants To Join EU Within Five Years


Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic gives a press conference following a working session at EU headquarters in Brussels on June 26.
Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic gives a press conference following a working session at EU headquarters in Brussels on June 26.
Prime Minister Ivica Dacic says Serbia wants to join the European Union in "four or five years."

Dacic welcomed the EU's decision to open accession talks with Serbia, saying Belgrade did not want the talks to last 10 years.

He was speaking after talks with EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton on June 26 in Brussels.

EU governments on June 25 agreed that Serbia and Kosovo have taken significant steps to normalize their relations, a key condition for the start of membership talks with Belgrade and on an association agreement with Pristina.

An EU summit on June 28 has to approve the decision.

Ashton, who mediated the April agreement on normalizing ties, said that at the summit, "I will be there to say that Serbia has delivered, and the European Union needs to deliver."

Based on reporting by AFP and dpa

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