JM News UK

By Fatos Bytyci and Matt Robinson PRISTINA/BELGRADE (Reuters) - Kosovo Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci, who led a guerrilla insurgency against Serbia, hopes to pay a landmark visit to Belgrade next week for a conference, an adviser said on Thursday, despite calls for his arrest. Serbian politicians have long branded Thaci a war criminal for his role in Kosovo's 1998-99 conflict. He was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in jail for "terrorism" by Serbia in 1997, but just over a decade later he oversaw Kosovo's declaration of independence and for years has been involved in European Union-mediated negotiations aimed at settling relations with Belgrade. "Thaci has received the invitation and is ready to go," Ardian Arifaj, an adviser to the foreign minister, told Reuters.