Balkan Leaders Question Nikolic's Intentions
Nikolic has pledged to improve relations with Serbia’s neighbours in the region but some are sceptical due to his nationalistic past.
Tomislav Nikolic, Serbia’s newly elected president, has said after taking the presidential oath that he would work to promote good relations with neighbouring states.
On Friday, he indicated that talks between Belgrade and Pristina would be resumed immediately.
"I will propose a consensus-based solution for the Kosovo and Metohija issue on Monday," he added.
The two countries have been holding talks in Brussels since March 2011, following Kosovo’s independence declaration in 2008, which Belgrade fiercely opposes.
On the same day, Nikolic said that Serbia wanted to have excellent relations with Croatia and Montenegro but that both countries should treat Serbs minorities there better.
He therefore promised to continue the practice of his predecessor, the Democrats' Boris Tadic, of remaining in constant touch with Serbs from the region.
"The Constitution of Serbia states that the state should preserve and protect the interests of Serbs abroad," he explained.
However, the good relations between Zagreb and Belgrade have already started to cool after Nikolic expressed support for a "Greater Serbia" in an interview with the German newspaper Franfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, just before the second round of Serbia's recent presidential elections.
Croatia's President, Ivo Josipovic, will not attend the inauguration of Serbia's new president on June 11 unless Nikolic withdraws his recent statements concerning a Greater Serbia.
For several months in 1991, Nikolic was stationed with Vojislav Seselj's paramilitary, so-called Chetnik, units in the eastern Croatian village of Antin.
He was previously a high ranking official of the far right Radical Party, led by Vojislav Seselj, who is currently on trial in The Hague, and who also supported the idea of Greater Serbia. The two split in 2008 after which Nikolic took a more moderate and pro-EU path.
Bosnian Presidency Chairman Bakir Izetbegovic has expressed hopes that with Tomislav Nikolic "things will continue to move in the direction of regional reconciliation”.
Izetbegovic said that, if Nikolic continued to send messages of reconciliation and "starts acting the way he promises", then the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency would soon invite him to pay a visit to Sarajevo.
"We will see whether he has only changed his rhetoric or his position as well, and we will treat him accordingly," Izetbegovic told the Anadolu News Agency.
In an interview for the Montenegrin state television Nikolic said that the notorious 1995 massacre of over 7,000 Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims] in the town of Srebrenica was not genocide but a "grave war crime."
Election Background
Serbian Elections 2012: What's at stake
This spring almost 7 million Serbians are entitled to vote in presidential, general, provincial and local elections.
Two Decades of Election Tumult in Serbia
Since the renewal of multi-party politics in 1990 power has oscillated between a variety of parties in Serbia and votes have often followed by allegations of frauds and protests.
Key Parties in Serbia
Twelve years after the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, the scene has changed significantly as parties rise, fall and change their minds. See Balkan Insight's profiles of Serbia's ruling and opposition parties.
Serbian Presidential Elections Since 1990
Since the first multi-party elections were held in 1990, Serbia has often had acting heads of state, while many of those elected ended their terms before their mandates expired.
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