Nikolic: An administrative pogrom against Serbs in Kosovo has been prevented

The Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija, Danijela Nikolic, stated today that the solution regarding the implementation of Pristina’s law on foreigners has prevented an administrative pogrom against Serbs in Kosovo, RTV reports.

Speaking to Tanjug about the solution related to the implementation of the law on foreigners adopted by Pristina, Nikolic said that it represents a success of Serbian diplomacy and emphasized that the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučic, the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Petar Petkovic, and the Serbian List had worked around the clock to find a solution that is currently beneficial for the Serbian people in Kosovo.

“The fact is that with this solution we have preserved the status of our institutions, because there will be no entry into the Kosovo system and no integration of either education or healthcare into the Kosovo system,” Nikolic stressed.

She stated that this solution is of great importance for Serbs who live and work in Kosovo because “today they can continue their work without obstruction and students are attending their faculties normally.”

Nikolic said that the next task for the mayors of municipalities with a Serb majority in Kosovo will be to submit lists of all individuals working in the healthcare and education sectors so that they can obtain 12-month residence permits. She added that those who do not have Kosovo documents will have the opportunity to obtain them within the next three months.

“Had this law been applied in a strictly legal sense, today—22 years after the March pogrom—we would have faced another pogrom and another ‘Storm’ without a single shot being fired,” Nikolic pointed out.

When asked to what extent the solution resulted from European pressure on Pristina in order to avoid a new crisis, Nikolic said that Europe had this time demonstrated that it can influence Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, even though in the past it had often remained silent and turned a blind eye to situations that were detrimental to the Serbian people in Kosovo.

She emphasized that this solution also responds to many critics and opposition figures in Serbia who claimed that healthcare and education had been “handed over to Albin Kurti to manage” outside the framework of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities (ASM).

“Both Besnik Bislimi and Nenad Rasic claimed that the agreement implied the integration of healthcare and education. There was never any discussion about healthcare and education outside the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities and the Brussels Agreement. That is part of the ASM, which will be financed from the budget of Serbia. This is a great truth and a victory of that truth—that our negotiating team never conducted or agreed upon anything behind closed doors, as our opposition claims in pursuit of cheap political points,” she said.

Nikolic also pointed out that all those critics and opposition representatives in Serbia had received an answer to their claims from the EU Special Representative for the Belgrade–Pristina Dialogue, Peter Sørensen, regarding allegations that something had been agreed behind the scenes.

She stressed that it was of great importance that the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) had also reacted by calling for the suspension of the implementation of Pristina’s law on foreigners, noting that the Church has always been a gathering place for the Serbian people in Kosovo in difficult times.

“Today marks the anniversary of the day in 1981 when separatists set fire to the residence of the Patriarchate of Pec. We remember that day—everything in this March somehow carries symbolism for our people,” said the Chairwoman of the Parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija.