Joe Biden is scheduled to be in Serbia and Kosovo this week for his final visit as USA vice president to the Balkans, where he played an important role in ending the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. Biden has long used Scranton as a symbol of the American dream, and often invokes his early years there as evidence he’s a man of the people.
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U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, center, waves to onlookers with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, right, as they walk along the vintage street Skadarlija in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016.
There are avenues in the Kosovo capital Pristina named after former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and many more celebrating U.S. politicians and army generals throughout the country of 1.8 million. He is also trying to balance his pro-European agenda by maintaining strong ties with Russian Federation, its Orthodox Slav ally and the biggest global supporter of Serbia’s refusal to recognize Kosovo’s independence.
But Biden is also expected to testify to Clinton’s credentials and empathy, portraying her as the nominee who understands the challenges faced by the working class. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo sovereignty. Some of those agreements – including one giving more self-rule to Kosovo’s Serb minority – remain unimplemented. It’s such a bunch of malarkey, ” Biden said, adding: “He doesn’t have a clue”.
During his stay in Belgrade, Biden, however, apologised for the deaths caused by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombings. He is in the second day of three-day trip that will be his last as vice president to the region.
On his first visit to Kosovo since 2009 – the year after it unilaterally declared independence from Serbia – Biden held talks with President Hashim Thaci and other leaders before a dedication ceremony naming a road after his late son. Beau Biden served in 2001 as an interim legal adviser on post-war Kosovo.
Meanwhile, Clinton said during her speech that if she wins she will ask Biden to continue heading the campaign he is now leading against cancer, with which he has involved himself since early 2016 after his 46-year-old son Beau died of a brain tumor the previous May. They were “worse than I ever imagined”, she said. “On behalf of the Biden family, we are extremely grateful and humbled beyond words”.
In another section of Belgrade Tuesday, right-wing marchers associated with the Serbian Radical Party marched in protest of Biden’s visit, advocating for Trump with signs and pictures of the Republican candidate’s face. Biden is scheduled to be in Serbia and Kosovo, starti. “Without it, it will not likely happen”, he said.
Vucic, who started a new four-year mandate on August 11 after winning April snap elections, has pledged to prepare Serbia for European Union accession by 2019.
Biden, who has been one among the many in the USA to vocally oppose Trump, was perhaps given a cold welcome by the radicals because of his support for the bombing of Serbia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in the 1990s.
Biden traveled late Tuesday on to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, where ethnic Albanian rebels sought independence after the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombing campaign.
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AP writer Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.
