Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said there will be "neither the factual nor de jure" recognition of neighboring Kosovo under his leadership, vowing that he "won't be the one to sign" onto the independence of the majority-ethnic Albanian former province.
The statements appear to dash diplomatic momentum after Vucic and the Kosovar prime minister, Albin Kurti, pledged their willingness in Brussels on February 27 to continue the implementation of a normalization road map known as the Franco-German plan.
"I will not be the one who will sign the independence of Kosovo," Vucic said on March 11, according to local news agency Beta, adding that he would be "ashamed to circumvent Serbia."
"There is no surrender; we will recognize neither the factual nor de jure independence of Kosovo, but we want peace with the Albanians, we want decent relations," he said in Vranje, in the south of Serbia.
Vucic reiterated the need for the creation by Kosovar authorities of an association of ethnic Serb municipalities to provide a forum for dialogue with the country's Serb minority, as Pristina pledged in a decade-old agreement also mediated by the European Union.
Vucic suggested that the association's formation was "probably being fulfilled."
Pristina has dragged its feet on laying the legal foundation for the organization, however, with Kurti suggesting that an ethno-nationally based solution was "not possible."
Vucic on March 9 also cast doubt on Belgrade's willingness to clear the way for Kosovar admission to the United Nations or recognition for Kosovo.
More than 100 countries around the world recognize Kosovo's 2008 declaration of sovereignty, which followed a bitter war of independence after the breakup of Yugoslavia and has not been acknowledged by Serbia, Russia, and a handful of EU states.
The head of Kosovo's liaison office in Serbia, Jetish Jashari, asserted after the late-February commitments that they were a turning point on the long path of negotiations.
"It is crucial that the implementation of the proposal begins without delay and in good faith," Jashari told RFE/RL's Balkan Service.
Belgrade and Pristina have each maintained liaison offices in the other since the so-called Brussels Agreement in 2013 intended to facilitate normalization, but they don't have formal diplomatic relations.
The European Union's representative to the dialogue efforts, Miroslav Lajcak, is due in Belgrade on March 13.
Vucic and Kurti are scheduled to meet in Ohrid, in North Macedonia, on March 18.