Posted on 05/19/2009 12:52:58 AM PDT by Schnucki
Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, departed Washington for the Balkans on Monday, seeking to press a "reset button" with Serbia after relations plummeted over Kosovo's independence last year.
More broadly, a US administration official said Mr Biden hoped to demonstrate President Barack Obama's commitment to engage with a region where Washington invested heavily in the past to end wars in the 1990s and promote stability.
The Vice-President will be the highest-level US official to visit Serbia since Jimmy Carter who when he was president toured what was then Yugoslavia in June 1980.
Mr Biden will spend Tuesday in Bosnia-Herzegovina – accompanied there by the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana – before visiting Serbia on Wednesday and Kosovo on Thursday, aides said.
Balkans analyst Charles Kupchan said that the Biden tour points to a "sense that the situation in the Balkans has been quietly slipping backwards" as the world is focused on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The spotlight will be on Mr Biden's visit to Belgrade, whose long-strained ties with Washington only worsened when the United States backed the unilateral declaration of independence last year by the former Serb province of Kosovo.
"The objective in a sense is very straightforward," the administration official told reporters.
"This is a tremendous opportunity to make it very clear to the government of Serbia and to the people of Serbia that we hope to press the reset button with Serbia," the official said on the condition of anonymity.
Earlier this year, Mr Biden told foreign leaders at an international security conference in Germany that the Obama administration wanted to "press the reset button" with Moscow, a Belgrade ally.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
For the briefest of moments, my Gaffe-Vision read the headline as ‘Siberia’.
Because it’s Biden.
Rut-Ro.
Expect relations with Serbia to sour effective immediately.
Seems likely that this is a case of ‘get him outta here’. But who is carrying the ‘reset button’? Did Hillary give it to Joe? Cannot believe we are being reminded here as well; of another foreign policy gaffe. Seems just more of Obama Reality TV. . .
Give them Hillary. The Clinton machine started this mess.
The Bosnians have been nothing but trouble. Talk about a
quagmire!
Besides, Ei Vacuum tubes are no longer in production
thanks to Clinton’s bombs.
Joe Biden looks to improve America’s relationship with Serbia
Move there blabbermouth. It would make me happy.
You Go Joe. . . . . . .
They were already soured, Biden’s presence is nothing but a mockery.
Does he drink?
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