U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Thomas Countryman has stated that Belgrade is sending a wrong message by boycotting the conference between the political leaders and businessmen of the Western Balkan countries and the current and potential partners from the U.S. because of the participation of Kosovo.

The boycott puts politics before economy and diminishes what was once looked upon as sincere effort of Belgrade and Washington to build better economic relations, Countryman stated for the Belgrade-based daily Danas.

He pointed out that boycotting the conference, as well as discouraging the Serbian businessmen from participating in it together with several hundreds of businessmen and investors from the U.S. and the Western Balkans, is disappointing, not as a political issue, but rather as an economic issue at the time when the U.S. are trying to build economic and business ties with Serbia.

On behalf of the U.S. Administration, the government of the Federal State of Maryland will organize in Baltimore on March 23-24 a summit between the political leaders and business people from the Western Balkan countries and the current and potential partners from the U.S. (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc.).

According to the announcements, the conference will be attended by almost all invited regional leaders - Borut Bahor (Slovenia), Ivo Josipovic and Jadranka Kosor (Croatia), Bakir Izetbegovic (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Filip Vujanovic (Montenegro), Nikola Gruevski (Macedonia), Hasim Taci (Kosovo) and Bamir Topi (Albania).

However, the conference will not be attended by Serbia's top officials, President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, and the presence of other participants from Serbia is also very uncertain.

The American hosts are disappointed, although not particularly surprised with Belgrade decision not to attend, since, in accordance with the Serbian authorities' custom to boycott any international event the list of which includes the Kosovo representatives, the organizers of the Business Summit in Maryland were also made clear that they should not count on the participation on Serbia's representatives in Baltimore, the paper reports.