Petkovic with Due: Serbian people in Kosovo expect UNMIK to respond to all ethnically motivated incidents

Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Petar Petkovic spoke today with the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative and Head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Peter Due, to whom he conveyed that the Serbian people in Kosovo expect the mission to respond with greater responsibility to all ethnically motivated incidents, attacks, and violations of rights to which they are subjected by Pristina, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija said.

“In this context, Petkovic particularly highlighted politically motivated arrests of Serbs by the provisional institutions in Pristina, including nine Serbian householders from Zubin Potok, stressing that in all these proceedings the presumption of innocence is violated, the right to an effective defense is denied, and Serbs are being detained on the basis of their ethnicity, without clear evidence of guilt, with the sole aim of intimidating and expelling our people,” the statement said.

“It is unacceptable that in numerous cases where the rights of Serbs are being violated, the international community remains silent and without adequate engagement in protecting them,” the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija said.

Petkovic also pointed out to his interlocutor the many obstacles created by Pristina when it comes to the dialogue being conducted in Brussels, and that Albin Kurti's regime is undermining all the achievements made so far in the negotiations through unilateral, unlawful and escalatory actions, while at the same time refusing to establish the Community of Serb Municipalities for 13 years.

“He recalled that Aleksandar Vucic recently pointed out in his speech during the United Nations General Assembly to the international community's policy of double standards toward the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija, advocating both there and elsewhere for greater rights and stronger and more decisive protection of our people in Kosovo and Metohija, with full respect for UN Security Council Resolution 1244,” the Office concluded.