Petkovic with Botsan-Kharchenko: By promoting the idea of 'Greater Albania', Kurti threatens the Serbs and the entire region

Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, held talks today with the Ambassador of Russia to Serbia, Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko, regarding the political-security situation in Kosovo and the issues facing the Serbs in that territory.

According to the statement from the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, at the beginning of the conversation, Petkovic emphasized the significance of discussing the drafting of the Statute of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities during the recent round of technical-level talks between Belgrade and Pristina in Brussels. This was considered the first concrete step towards the formation of the CSM, awaited by the Serbs in Kosovo for more than ten years.

Petkovic, they add, informed the Ambassador about "the difficult position of the Serbs in the province, which is constantly endangered by escalatory and other violent and unilateral moves by Albin Kurti and his Government in Pristina".

"The Serbs on a daily basis have their basic human and civil rights trampled upon in Kosovo and Metohija, they are denied the right to vote in the parliamentary elections on December 17, they are arrested without any grounds and held in detention for several months, while Kurti, through a policy of terror, directly jeopardizes the stability that has been built on the ground for years. At the same time, Kurti is trying in every way to keep his false mayors in power in the four municipalities in the north of Kosovo and Metohija, further suppressing the Serbs through them", Petkovic stated.

The Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija assessed that by promoting the idea of "Greater Albania" and the message that the KSF was the direct successor of the terrorist organization KLA, Kurti had directly threatened the entire Serbian population in Kosovo. He noted that such Greater Albanian ideas also evolved into threats to the stability of the entire region.

"The Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija emphasized that, despite Kurti's irresponsible moves, Belgrade would continue to diligently and devotedly preserve peace and advocate for dialogue as the only sustainable path to the normalization of relations with Pristina. At the end of the conversation, Petkovic thanked the Russian Ambassador and his country for their consistent support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia", the statement said.