EU ENLARGEMENT:
Meeting is aimed at speeding up the EU integration of Balkan states wishing to join the bloc.

LJUBLJANA - Slovenia and Croatia's Prime Ministers will meet Friday with Serbian President Boris Tadic to discuss an upcoming conference on EU integration of the Balkans, Slovenia said Thursday. "The objective of the meeting will be to tighten the positions in light of the Western Balkans conference," the office of Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor said in a statement. The meeting was to take place Friday at 1500GMT in the Slovenian city of Ptuj, near the Croatian border.

Pahor and his Croatian counterpart Jadranka Kosor decided in January to organize a conference in Slovenia on March 20, aimed at speeding up the EU integration of Balkan states wishing to join the bloc. Serbian President Boris Tadic and Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu were both expected to attend, Pahor said. So far Serbian officials have avoided any direct meetings with representatives of Kosovo, a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008, unless they were part of a delegation of the United Nations' administration in Kosovo (UNMIK). Earlier this week, media in Serbia reported that Sejdiu would attend the conference in Slovenia only as Kosovo president and not as a member of the UNMIK delegation.

Slovenian foreign ministry's spokesman Milan Balazic could not confirm to AFP whether both presidents would attend the conference but added that efforts to organize the meeting "were under way and very close" to a successful end. Serbia refuses to recognize Kosovo as an independent state and still considers it an integral part of its territory.

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