Petkovic: Pristina authorities publicly denied existence of Serbian people in Kosovo — will EU react?

Director of the Serbian Government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija Petar Petkovic said that the authorities in Pristina, led by Albin Kurti, had today publicly denied the existence of the Serbian people in Kosovo and asked whether the European Union would finally react. He described today’s scenes in the Pristina Assembly as “pure racial segregation of Serbs and apartheid.”

“Today’s scenes in the Pristina Assembly, where representatives of the Serb List are denied the right to speak and threatened with the so-called prosecution service simply because they proudly emphasize that they belong to the Serbian people, amount to pure racial segregation of Serbs and apartheid, with the aim of reducing an entire people to the level of a ‘community’,” Petkovic wrote on X.

He stressed that every attempt to deny the existence of a people was a crime of its own kind, especially when such a message came from the highest-ranking representatives in Pristina.

“Everything the Serbian people are enduring—persecution, arrests, demolition of Serbian homes, pressure on the Serbian language and bans on Serbian symbols—is part of Pristina’s policy, which openly says that the Serbian people do not exist,” Petkovic said.

Albulena Haxhiu, who was elected Speaker of the Kosovo Assembly today, said during the session that Serb List MP Igor Simic had made a statement that was “unacceptable” while presenting the nomination for Deputy Speaker of Parliament.

While nominating Slavko Simic for Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, MP Igor Simic referred to the Serbian people.

“On behalf of the Serbian people, with the signatures of the majority of MPs holding seats reserved for the Serbian community—nine out of ten—we nominate Mr Slavko Simic as a candidate for Deputy Speaker of the Assembly,” Serb List parliamentary group leader Igor Simic said.

Following Simic’s remarks, Self-Determination MP Donika Gervalla wrote on Facebook that the Serb List’s proposal was scandalous and unacceptable because “there is no Serbian people in Kosovo, only a Serbian community.”