Richard Holbrooke

US President Joe Biden has nominated retired diplomat Christopher Hill, a veteran of American involvement in the Balkans in the 1990s war years, as his country's new ambassador to Belgrade, the White House announced on Friday.

Hill, whose appointment must be confirmed by the US Senate, has previously been an ambassador in Albania, North Macedonia, Poland, South Korea and Iraq.

Hajdin Abazi, Kosovo's ambassador to Australia, posing with his photo with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Photo courtesy of Hajdin Abazi.

Following the easing of COVID-19 lockdown measures in Australia in June this year, I met Kosovo's then ambassador to the country, Hajdin Abazi, at a restaurant in Canberra to discuss the ongoing Serbia-Kosovo dialogue.

This is according to the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS), that is quoting Milivoje Mihajlovic, a former Radio Pristina editor and head of the Media Center in this town, that was "a key source of information for all media in 1998 and 1999 in Kosovo."

The US State Department has denied Serbian claims that the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke's letter wrote to the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1998/9, pledging that the United States would "never recognise Kosovo".

"This is simply not true. There is no such letter," the US State Department wrote in an email to BIRN.

Richard Holbrooke

Ivica Dacic seems to be in charge of making waves these days - after the Kosovo "delimitation" proposal, he has spoken about "Holbrooke's Kosovo letter."

Hague convict Radovan Karadzic has told the daily Vecernje Novosti that he had "a secret agreement" with Richard Holbrook, a former US envoy for the Balkans.

A cinema in Sarajevo was too small to hold all would-be viewers on Sunday of "The Diplomat", a documentary by the American director David Holbrooke about the life of his US diplomat father.

Holbrooke is seen as the mastermind behind the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the four-year war in Bosnia.