Drecun: Kurti's anti-Serb rhetoric encourages violence against the Serbs

The strong anti-Serb rhetoric of Albin Kurti and other officials in Pristina certainly did not discourage violent people but incited them to violence against the Serbs, Milovan Drecun, president of the Parliamentary Committee for Kosovo said, RTS reports.

He also assessed that there would have been fewer ethnically motivated attacks if the CSM had been formed. Drecun pointed out that it was up to President Vucic "to initiate the search for our way in solving the Kosovo issue".

Drecun said that Pristina did not respect everything that had been agreed, and that they were now being pressured by Western countries to form the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities.

"From our side, it was clearly stated that without the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, there was no return of Serbian political representatives to the temporary institutions of self-government and that there was no continuation of the dialogue if the Community was not formed," Drecun said.

He assessed that the Americans were perhaps the most persistent in the efforts to establish the CSM and added that the proposal for the statute of the Community had been sitting in Miroslav Lajcak's drawer for years and that it was up to him to put it on the agenda at one of the meetings of the delegations of Belgrade and Pristina.

"Kurti persistently talks about the rights of the Serbs instead of the Community. Therefore, he will not even mention the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities. Also, this European proposal does not talk about the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, it talks about a certain kind of self-government for the Serbs," Drecun said.

He added that now the question remained how Pristina would behave.

"It is easily possible that Kurti rejects the formation of the CSM to the end and goes for early elections in order to remain consistent with the promises he made, but the Community is the key and Miroslav Lajcak said that for them the CSM was the key to stability in Kosovo and that If the Community had been formed we would certainly have a much smaller number of ethnically motivated attacks on the Serbs, on their property, on the Serbian Orthodox Church," Drecun said.

Speaking about yesterday's attack on a 15-year-old boy in Suvi Dol, Drecun said that Pristina was tolerating it and thereby encouraging attacks on the Serbs.

"If the police do not react appropriately against those who cause violence, if the prosecution does not react properly; if the judiciary does not react; if the punishments are light or not punished at all, then this is the result of the politics pursued by Pristina. That strong anti-Serb rhetoric of Albin Kurti and other officials in the temporary institutions of self-government certainly does not discourage violent people, but incites them to violence against the Serbs," Milovan Drecun emphasized.

Drecun says that President Vucic received great support from the citizens in the last elections and that he has the greatest political power in Serbia.

"His job is to face problems, to solve them in agreement with other political subjects, with the executive power, with the parliament, and it is up to him to initiate and I think he already said that after the meeting with the “five”, that he would consult with all key actors on our political scene. It is up to him to initiate the search for our way to solving the Kosovo issue," Drecun said.

He noted that there had been quite a lot of tension in the public and added that the Franco-German proposal was only a basis for discussion and that it was necessary to talk, but also that he was afraid that "we will again fall for some of our misconceptions that have already become tragic".