Petkovic with Davenport: Pristina threatens to abolish all human and civil rights of Serbs

The Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, spoke today with the head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Michael Davenport, about the current security situation with special reference to the latest events and synchronized pressures on the Serbs, south, and north of the Ibar.

As stated in the announcement, Petkovic assessed that Pristina promoted pure violence against the Serbs with unilateral and illegal moves and threatened to abolish all their human, civil and political rights.

Petkovic reminded of yesterday's events, pointing to the situation in Velika Hoca, where members of ROSU and the Customs Administration had stolen 42,000 liters of wine from the Petrovic family; during that time the ROSU police with armored vehicles and weapons of war had raided the kindergarten in Leposavic while the children had been sleeping, which, as he pointed out, was inadmissible.

"The evidence that Pristina wants incidents and is provoking a new crisis in every way is last night's sending of 300-350 ROSU police officers with rifles and armored vehicles in Kosovska Mitrovica", Petkovic assessed and recalled the recent incursion of the Kosovo police with rifles into premises of the municipalities in the north of Kosovo while the EU-Western Balkans Summit had been held in Tirana.

He added that the rights of the Serbs in Kosovo had been violated by the appointment of Nenad Rasic as Minister for Communities and Returns, in the government of Kosovo, considering that Rasic's party had won only 0.173 percent of the votes in the last elections.

"All of the above shows that Pristina is preparing the occupation of the north of Kosovo and Metohija with illegal and violent actions and is creating space to forcibly impose the holding of illegal elections, which Kurti wants to carry out in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo and Metohija," Petkovic underlined.

He points out that, on the other hand, Belgrade neither wants nor takes steps that could lead to tension and new crises on the ground, and in this sense the Serbian side has fulfilled all the obligations from the Brussels Agreement, while Pristina has been refusing to start the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, for almost ten years.

At the end of the conversation, Petkovic emphasized that Belgrade supported the work and activities of the OSCE in the field of protecting the rights of the Serbs and other non-Albanian communities in Kosovo and establishing the rule of law and a safe environment for all citizens, but he pointed out that there was a need for those activities on the ground to be much more intensive and that the OSCE Mission should make a public announcement regarding the mentioned events.

"Otherwise, the latest events in the province threaten to destroy the Brussels Agreement and cancel everything agreed so far, but also lead to a serious threat to the peace and dangerous destabilization of the region, which Belgrade absolutely does not want," Petar Petkovic concluded.