Dacic: Guyana decided UN Security Council Session on Kosovo to be open

Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivica Dacic, announced today that Guyana, as the chair of the UN Security Council, had decided that the session on Kosovo, scheduled for Thursday, would be open.

Dacic, speaking to RTS, explained that, after talks with the Foreign Minister of Guyana, his counterpart from that country, Hugh Todd, had instructed the mission chief to schedule the session in an open format, without a vote.

"This hasn't been officially announced yet, but according to the information we have, Guyana, by the decision of the chair, has opted for an open session. It hasn't been officially announced on the Security Council's website, but we received information from the Foreign Minister of Guyana and diplomatic sources that Security Council members received Guyana's decision to schedule an open session," he said.

Dacic praised Guyana, a small country with less than a million inhabitants, for withstanding all pressures.

"Some countries have said they will respect Guyana's decision, such as South Korea, Slovenia,... Guyana's decision is very important for us," he emphasized.

"It is very important that President Aleksandar Vucic speaks at the open session, and his speech should be visible so that all reasons and arguments for why we requested an emergency session are heard. We're not trying to complicate the situation; on the contrary, we're complaining about the violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, about everything happening to the Serbian people, the terror they are exposed to, and attempts to ban the dinar," he explained.

Dacic said he did not understand the states that had requested the session to be closed.

He pointed out that there had been fierce behind-the-scenes games and pressures within the UN Security Council over the past two days for the presiding country, Guyana, to effectively schedule a closed session.

"Western countries, and EU countries, requested that the session be closed for reasons known only to them. We believe it's so the entire world won't hear what's happening in Kosovo, to allow further spreading of lies in the media. This was a very tough battle for us," he concluded.

Dacic reminded that Security Council sessions could be closed or open, and there was a third option, a "private session," from which statements could be issued.

The request for a closed session, he added, was justified by the fact that it had happened before regarding Kosovo.

He recalled that only Vojislav Kostunica and Boris Tadic had attended closed sessions of the UN Security Council and that it had been a different time, before the process of the unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence.

Dacic said that the President's office, the President himself, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had made maximum efforts through diplomatic contacts to schedule the session and make it open.

He alone, he added, personally spoke with countries that haven't recognized Kosovo, from Algeria, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, to Russia.

"It's very important that the session is accepted to be held. It could have ended up with a vote not to hold it," he noted.