Petkovic: Pristina uses the issue of missing persons for daily political struggle; for Belgrade, it is an ethical issue

The Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, said that on the International Day of the Disappeared, Serbia once again confirmed its unequivocal intention to contribute in every way to clarifying the fate of persons who had disappeared in Kosovo and Metohija, and expressed the hope that, after Pristina stopped the practice of brutal political abuse of this issue, families who were still searching for their loved ones got at least partial comfort.

"Unfortunately, the messages of Albin Kurti and his subordinates show us how little Pristina cares about humanity and the real normalization of relations; they use every issue, including the search for 1,618 missing persons, for daily political struggle, instead of stopping the obstruction of the implementation of the Declaration on Missing Persons which they have been doing for four months," Petkovic pointed out in a press release.

He reminded once again that Belgrade had shown the greatest possible readiness concerning the efforts to determine the fate of the missing or find their remains.

"Pristina asked us to search 23 locations and all requests were answered positively. On the other hand, Belgrade asked for searches at 10 locations in Kosovo and Metohija, but Pristina responded positively to only one request. And this shows a clear picture who is ready to cooperate when it comes to the search for the missing, and who blatantly abuses this topic by presenting untruths and lies," Petkovic added.

As he emphasized, resolving the fate of missing persons was a matter of the civilizational maturity of a society and Belgrade had never treated that issue as anything other than ethical and deeply humane.

"Pristina, however, never sincerely wanted the issue of the missing to be resolved, because there are constant attempts to politically instrumentalize the victims. We believe that solving the issue of the missing is one of the preconditions for reconciliation and overcoming the painful legacy of past war conflicts and that it is inhumane and inappropriate that this topic, instead of reconciliation, serves to deepen the inter-ethnic gap in Kosovo and Metohija and create new divisions - and Pristina does this permanently. In the hope that we will meet the next International Day of the Disappeared with the existence of a consensus that a decent and responsible attitude towards the disappeared and respect for the pain felt by numerous families, regardless of their nationality, our common civilizing obligation, I once again appeal to Pristina to stop the practice of the policy of abuse of victims," Petkovic said.