U.S. VP Biden visits Belgrade
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2016&mm=08&dd=16&nav_id=98921
Biden "to push for progress" in Belgrade-Pristina relations
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2016&mm=08&dd=16&nav_id=98916
After several hours in Belgrade, Biden left for Pristina. On Wednesday, he will meet Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and Prime Minister Isa Mustafa.
https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bidensinkosovo?source=embed
Hashim Thaçi - Biography
http://www.president-ksgov.net/?page=2,92
Prime Minister's Biography - Isa Mustafa
http://www.kryeministri-ks.net/?page=2,4
Biden will also participate in a ceremony to name a road after his deceased son Beau Biden near Camp Bondsteel, the main base for US troops serving with NATO forces in Kosovo.
Beau Biden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beau_Biden
Beau Biden,photos
https://www.google.hr/search?q=Beau+Biden&client=opera&sa=N&biw=1745&bih=856&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=0ahUKEwiOxO24jcjOAhXI2CwKHZbOCCo4ChCwBAgX
US Vice President's visit to Serbia
Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic will be host to US Vice President Joe Biden on 16 August during his visit to Serbia.
http://www.srbija.gov.rs
Programme of the visit
Airport "Nikola Tesla":
First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic will welcome Biden at Belgrade Airport "Nikola Tesla".
To cover the event, please send accreditation for media representatives no later than 15 August at 16.00, to email press@gov.rs .
Accreditations should contain the name, identity card number and occupation of all members of the team.
Subsequently received accreditations will not be accepted.
The media must arrive at Airport "Nikola Tesla" VIP entrance on 16 August no later than 9.30.
Palace of Serbia:
All accredited media representatives should arrive no later than 14.30 at the eastern entrance of the Palace of Serbia.
Welcoming ceremony in front of the fountain at the Palace of Serbia is allowed.
A bilateral meeting between the two delegations will be closed to the media.
The media will be able to record the meeting of Vucic and Biden, while the statements of two officials will be open to the media.
Also, representatives of the media will be able to record the meeting of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and Vice President Joseph Biden.
Vice President Joe Biden
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/vice-president-biden
Dr. Jill Biden
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/jill-biden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Biden
Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic
http://www.srbija.gov.rs/vlada/predsednik.php
Ivica Dacic, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
http://www.srbija.gov.rs/vlada/ministri.php
US Vice President Joe Biden to make farewell Balkans visit
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-08-15/us-vice-president-joe-biden-to-make-farewell-balkans-visit
Joe Biden is scheduled to be in Serbia and Kosovo this week for his final visit as U.S. vice president to the Balkans
FILE - In this file photo dated Tuesday, June 14, 2016, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden walks onstage to address the White House Summit in Washington, U.S.A. Biden is scheduled to be in Serbia and Kosovo later this week, starting with Serbia on Tuesday Aug. 16, 2016, 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. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, FILE) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press
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.
Kosovo is predominantly Muslim, but strongly pro-American. Serbia — which does not recognize Kosovo's statehood — is seeking European Union membership, but has maintained strong ties with its traditional ally Russia.
The unresolved murders of three Albanian-American brothers in Serbia after the end of the war in Kosovo are expected to be high on the agenda during Biden's talks with Serbian leaders.
The brothers — Ylli, Mehmet and Agron Bytyqi — left their New York pizza business to fight with ethnic Albanian rebels against Serbia's rule in Kosovo. The U.S. citizens were arrested at the end of the clashes when they strayed into central Serbia. Their bodies were discovered in a mass grave in 2001.
As a senator, Biden was a strong advocate of the NATO bombing of Serbia in the 1990s. He once said that his work to end the Yugoslav wars was one of the "proudest moments" of his long political career.
In Kosovo, Biden also will attend a ceremony naming a street near an American military base after his late son, Beau Biden, who died last year of brain cancer at age 46. Beau Biden served in 2001 as an interim legal adviser on post-war Kosovo.
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