"Đurić's further development will depend on his willingness to be the one who will be the first to receive a blow and pick up a large part of the public's negative sentiment for the sake of another, for the sake of Vučić, and to be patient." If he pays good attention in class, if he doesn't get carried away by Dorćol fashions and the desire for shortcuts, he will go far. He is growing next to the best teacher in the area."
These prophetic sentences were written in "Time" about two years ago. And they proved to be quite correct, because now it is already quite certain that Marko Đurić, "one of the best politicians in Serbia", as his colleague Goran Vesić would say, will soon become the ambassador in Washington.
Whether it will be a greater gain for Serbian diplomacy than a loss for the Serbian political scene, we will see very soon, as soon as His Excellency changes from his Kosovo patriotic uniforms to diplomatic ones. The only thing that is certain is that with his departure "across the pond", Đurić will be missed the most, as an inexhaustible inspiration, to the domestic comedy scene. But Marko, in a recent post on Facebook, made it clear to those who derisively call him "Mr. Bean" or "Ready for applause": "He who laughs last will laugh the sweetest." And he also warned them that it can be easy it happens that "a toy becomes a crybaby". Because: "However, what kind of freedom and democracy are we talking about when the tycoon and foreign factor does not want to introduce themselves to us by name and surname, ideas and past performance, but instead, like Danube catfish that will probably hunt for durdubak again, subvert Kesić , Ivan Ivanović, Koraks, Vesna Rakić Vodinelić, Draža Petrović and other brave heroes of the flying circus brigade...", Đurić writes in his post.
THE LONG JOURNEY TO THE DIPLOMA: This young man from Vučić was born in 1983 in Belgrade. He is a law graduate who, even during his student days, showed "high social awareness through involvement in student organizations, initiating and organizing numerous forums, panel discussions of an international character and other public events."
It is not exactly clear what is meant by the term "high social consciousness", but Djuric's official biographer omitted the sequence from 2000 when the future ambassador to Washington joined the Resistance. Witnesses from that period say, however, that he was completely anonymous in the Resistance and did not stand out in any way. Nevertheless, there is still a clip on YouTube today in which the young Đurić is being trained on how to behave in case he is caught by the police. In the aforementioned post on Facebook, justifying his youth, he calls that episode from his past a descent down the rope and adds, paraphrasing Njegoš, "the rope almost broke."
Between 2003 and 2007, he was a regular award winner at the traditional debate competition, organized by the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade. He is currently attending postgraduate master's studies, majoring in Sustainable Development and Ecology, at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade.
Since 2011, he has been employed as a researcher at the Institute for Political Studies. However, as it was already reported in "Vremen", Đurić's academic career did not go very smoothly. He entered the Faculty of Law in Belgrade in 2002. Goran Vesić says that he was a great student, but the fact is that he never graduated from the Faculty of Law in Belgrade (he is not on the list of those who completed his studies), but in 2010 from something called the Faculty of Law for Justice and Economy in Novi Sad.
The faculty, which he graduated in 2010, is part of the University of the Privredna Academy. On their website it is written: "The Faculty of Law for Economy and Justice in Novi Sad has so far achieved very significant results in the process of educating ambitious people, who successfully started their professional careers shortly after completing their studies in the judiciary, courts, prosecutor's offices, lawyers, state bodies and institutions, as well as in the economy."
POLITICS AS DESTINY: He has been a member of the Serbian Progressive Party since its foundation in 2008, and in that party he has continuously held the most responsible positions. He currently holds the position of vice-president of the SNS, and he explained his involvement in the party with the words: "The desire to change Serbia and make it better made me join the party."
"I didn't want to agree to the fact that the absence of a strategy and poor organization would be the rule, not the exception," said Djuric at the moment when he was already appointed as the foreign policy advisor to Tomislav Nikolić, the President of the Republic of Serbia. In that position, he was responsible for the coordination of the president's foreign policy team, daily diplomatic communication and strategic political planning, as well as the activities of the state leadership in connection with the issue of Kosovo and Metohija and for the preparation of the official state platform for negotiations with the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government in Pristina, which he articulated Community of Serbian municipalities.
Since May 2014, after the formation of the government of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, he has been the director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija. In addition, Đurić is also the head of the team for negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, as well as the head of the negotiation group for Chapter 35 (other issues, the European Union decided that the entire process of normalization of relations with Pristina is part of this chapter).
He is fluent in English and Hebrew, and speaks French and Russian, according to his official biography. It is also interesting to note that Marko Đurić is the grandson of Najdan Pašić, one of the founders of the Faculty of Political Sciences. Professor Pašić, by the way, was the nephew of Nikola Pašić.
SECRET GUARD: The news about the future appointment of Marko Đurić as ambassador in Washington caused a number of conflicting comments, especially in the political and professional public. The most common complaints are that Đurić does not have any diplomatic experience, which is necessary to perform this job in one of the most important world capitals.
Vladeta Janković, former ambassador to Great Britain and the Vatican, believes that the possible appointment of Marko Đurić as ambassador to the USA would be "an additional mistake due to his proven incompetence and sloppiness in foreign policy". "It's not a job where timely and long-lasting applause is of great benefit," Janković said.
He also said that Đurić's appointment as ambassador is only "a further step in the collapse of Serbia's diplomatic network". "Besides inexperience and a certain pretentiousness without cover, Đurić is also marked by the mortgage of well-known connections with certain problematic circles in the north of Kosovo. The latter, by the way, could prove to be an obstacle to obtaining an agreement," concludes Janković.
The fact that Đurić is not a "career diplomat" can hardly be the argument used by Aleksandar Vučić. It will be the other way around. After the Washington agreements and the establishment of specific relations with the USA, it is, above all, important for the President of Serbia to appoint his trusted man in this position. Because there should be no dilemma - Marko Đurić will not be the ambassador of Serbia in the classic sense of the term, but only Vučić's extended hand in America.
In the time ahead, especially if Donald Trump wins the presidential elections again, Serbia is likely to have a very delicate period of relations with the USA, especially when it comes to Kosovo. This implies, among other things, a series of agreements about which the public in Serbia will know little or nothing. And who is a better candidate for the "keeper of secrets" from the Oval Office than Đurić?
