Odalovic: Kurti is joking about the issue of missing persons; it is known how two working groups should communicate

Regarding Albin Kurti's statement that a letter was sent to the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, requesting the opening of the Serbian archives, the President of the Commission for Missing Persons of the Government of Serbia, Veljko Odalovic, told Kosovo Online that he had not known that any request had arrived from Pristina regarding the missing persons and pointed out that the Prime Minister of Kosovo was playing with a very important and sensitive issue.

"It is obvious that Pristina continues to joke about such a sensitive topic. If what Albin Kurti stated is true, that Hoti wrote to President Vucic, it is even more ridiculous. I simply do not understand that type of communication, because there is a very clear mechanism that in the Declaration on Missing Persons was evaluated very positively and it is supported to continue the work of the Working Group for Missing Persons according to that mechanism," Odalovic said.

He explains that there are Working Groups for missing persons and that the communication related to documentation and everything else goes exclusively from one delegation to another, Pristina or Belgrade, through the International Committee of the Red Cross, which chairs the Working Group.

This, he points out, is the only communication that should exist and that is supported and accepted in both Brussels and Ohrid.

"Something like this obviously serves another type of their internal story and this is just another confirmation that Albin Kurti is not interested in the issues of missing persons, nor does he want to return to the mechanism that he interrupted before, more than two years ago in Brussels," Odalovic points out.

It seems that less than a month ago in Brussels, it was agreed to work on that joint Commission, which should supervise the work of the Working Group.

That joint Commission, Odalovic adds, is something foreseen by the Declaration and it should be chaired by a representative of the EU, and, as he says, it should include High Representatives of Belgrade and Pristina, and the International Committee of the Red Cross as an observer.

"It is something that is good for the mechanism and is a form of support for the work of the Working Group, and when we went to Brussels to practically just agree on the methodology and the way we will work further, there we encountered an extremely irresponsible attitude of Bislimi who did not want to talk on that topic, although we agreed with the European delegation and accepted the corrections and exchanged information. We thought that we would return from Brussels with at least one message for the families of missing persons, both Albanians and Serbs, and that we would agree to continue working," Odalovic said.

He says that today's statements from Pristina show that they do not want to work on this issue, and, as he points out, he was particularly unpleasantly surprised by Andin Hoti's behavior.

"It is obvious that Ptistina does not want that and this is another confirmation of Kurti's extremely irresponsible attitude, and I was very unpleasantly surprised by the extremely irresponsible behavior of Hoti as well, because he knows that the only address through which he can communicate is through the International Committee of the Red Cross, and such a document was not sent to us. So all this is just another playing out of this story. I know when we talked about the Declaration that we talked a lot about archives both ours and international archives, but also many other things that we included in that mechanism. We will absolutely work and act according to it, but when we start working, and in this way, we certainly won't be able to work," Odalovic emphasized.

It is obvious, he says, that Albin Kurti, Bislimi, and now, unfortunately, Hoti are trying to cheat the entire dialogue process.

"Even when someone forces them to come to Brussels to accept certain documents and to at least that night restore some hope to the families of the missing persons that we will do something, they only prolong their agony the very next day with their statements and activities, i.e. their inaction and refusal to cooperate," Odalovic reminds.

He stated that he had not been informed whether someone had written that letter and sent it to Vucic's address, but he believed that such a document was pointless, "not because the president will not respond to all these questions, but because it is not for him."

He states that Vucic had created the environment, conditions, and opportunities for work, accepted the Declaration, and that both parties had received full support to start working.

"They should wise up, and schedule a meeting of the Working Group as soon as possible, we have dozens of information and new locations that we need to exchange, to go to the field, to use the nice weather that is coming to search for locations that both Albanians and the Serbs are interested in and to simply start sending responses that we are really committed to this process. This is going nowhere. I really don't know if those behind the dialogue and all this have the strength to bring them to their senses and make them understand or they will continue to ignore all this and act as if nothing is happening. I don't know, we will see if there will even be a meeting that is announced in Brussels at the highest level, if there is one, it is certain that this topic will also be on the table," Odalovic assesses.

So far, two topics have been set that are a priority - that the CSM be formed urgently and that the Declaration on Missing Persons be adopted, and that work on it began, he reminds.

However, as he says, Pristina has not implemented any of that.

"Neither did they do anything regarding the CSM, nor do they do anything about missing persons, so they do not accept international obligations and agreements and behave extremely ignorantly towards all this and extremely irresponsibly. One thing they are responsible for is the escalation of violence and all this they are doing in the north, causing conflicts, instead of returning to dialogue and returning to the resolution of a humane and civilizational issue such as missing persons and giving the families of both Serbs and Albanians as many answers as possible," he concludes.

Odalovic says that it is not clear to him how anyone sent a request from Pristina to President Vucic, and how he could receive such a document, stressing that it is all somewhat "ridiculous and absurd".

"There is a Working Group mechanism for that, and every document that comes from the Pristina or Belgrade delegation is received by the International Committee of the Red Cross and then handed over to Belgrade or Pristina so that we can work. In this way, we do not have any kind of direct communication between the two parties so that we can write to each other," the head of the government's Office for Missing Persons repeats.

When asked whether Serbia would open the archives, given that the Kosovo authorities were not cooperating on the matter, Odalovic points out that the delegation from Belgrade has never approached the issue of missing persons by making anything conditional. He says that Belgrade is open to cooperation and that according to his obligations; he will additionally search all archives.

"There is one thing that Pristina keeps silent about - we handed over 2,417 documents to them, all in the function of searching for missing persons, and until now everything that was done was done based on our information, our archives, whether it was police, military sources or utility companies or of other organizations. We have been working for years only based on our documentation; the Pristina side has not submitted a single document. At first, they claimed that they had no archives, and when we proved that there were dozens of documents of the so-called KLA, they simply kept silent," Odalovic says.

However, regardless of everything, he calls for cooperation, responsibility, and dialogue from the Pristina side.

"Let's slowly start working, so we can see what are the requests that make sense, what are the requests that don't make sense, because there is no such insight into anything until we specify exactly what they are looking for and related to which event. If they are looking for some document they must say - that date, that event, that place, and we will search our archives. If we have anything related to such a thing, we will put it into the function of searching for missing persons. But, first of all, we must first sit down at the table, we certainly cannot do this, especially not at a time when Albin Kurti is doing what he is already doing in the north of Kosovo, and allow him to make fun of such a serious topic," Odalovic concluded.