Marko Đurić is a Serbian politician. He serves as the director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija since September 2013. He has also served as the foreign policy adviser to the President of Serbia from 2012 to 2014. Being a member of the Serbian Progressive Party since its founding in 2008, he currently serves as party's vice president and as member of party's Council for Foreign Policy and European Integration.
Early life and education
Đurić enrolled as a student of a 4-year program of the Faculty of law in 2002, and graduated 8 years later, in 2010. Đurić speaks Serbian and English fluently, has a good level of Hebrew, and basic French.
Political, academic and professional activity
He joined Otpor movement in 2000, and became an activist of its press team, taking part in the 5 October Overthrow of the same year, that led to overthrowing of Slobodan Milošević’s regime. Đurić has also hosted and edited a youth political radio talk-show at the nationally broadcast “Radio Belgrade 202” station in 2001 and 2002. From 2002 to 2008, he was a member of the Student parliament at his faculty, where he organised and chaired several public discussions and participated in various student competitions. In 2008 he wrote an analysis of the proposed new Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. That year, he was among the founding members of the Serbian Progressive Party, and in 2009 he became SNS legal team coordinator and assistant to the Party Deputy President Aleksandar Vučić. Since 2010, he is a Member of the SNS Main Board, also acting as a party spokesman. In 2011 Đurić helped the establishment, and started coordination of SNS Foreign policy and European integration team, took very active and noticeable role during the 2012 election campaign, and in late 2012 he became a member of the Presidency of the Serbian Progressive Party. In 2011, he was employed as a researcher at the "Institute for political studies" in Belgrade, freezing his status at the Institute after SNS and its candidate Tomislav Nikolić won the general and presidential election in May 2012, and Đurić entered Office of the President. In June 2012 he was appointed a Foreign Policy Adviser to the President of the Republic of Serbia, with coordination of top officials’ activities regarding the International reaction to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, and the preparation of a Serbian official platform for Belgrade-Pristina negotiations in 2012, along with daily diplomatic communication and strategic policy planning being some of many of his important duties. On 2 September 2013, he was appointed as the director of Office for Kosovo and Metohija in the Government of Serbia. Marko Đurić was arrested during the meeting with local Serbs at 26 March 2018 in North Mitrovica by the Special Units of Kosovo Police, after crossing the territory of Kosovo. Kosovo’s deputy prime minister Enver Hoxhaj claimed that Đurić’s presence in Kosovo 'without authorization' of the Kosovar authorities was in breach of EU agreements between the two sides. During the arrest, many journalists were injured by some members of Kosovo Police which was condemned by European Broadcasting Union and OSCE. The act of arrest and violence was condemned by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić who said that Đurić's trip was legal and in fact according to the Brussels agreement. Đurić was then taken to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, brought in front of a judge and then escorted from the territory of Kosovo.
