Simic: I believe that the CSM will be on the table in Brussels and that Vucic will strongly insist on it

The vice-president of the Serb List, Igor Simic, says that the Serbs in Kosovo expect from the meeting that will be held in Brussels on Monday that the topic of the formation of the CSM will be on the table, primarily because the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, will be at that table.

Speaking as a guest on RTS's Morning show, Simic said that the Serbs in Kosovo lived in conditions that had never been more difficult.

"The Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija are living harder than ever, they live in conditions of personal, property, and legal insecurity, in conditions where Albin Kurti uses institutions to carry out violence with the aim of expelling the Serbs from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, and that means that if there are no Serbs in Kosovo, then why to negotiate," Simic said.

Simic stated that he had expected from the talks in Brussels, above all, the continuation of negotiations.

"The expectations of the Serbs in this sense are that the dialogue will continue even though it has its shortcomings because, in a situation where you don't have talks, you have unilateral moves by Pristina, which uses institutions and bare force to carry out its activities on the ground, creating a new reality. On the other hand, if we talk about the expectations of the EU representatives, the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija have their expectations based on the agreements signed ten years ago, which is the formation of the CSM, as agreed, to be an umbrella institution that will protect the individual and collective rights of the Serbs, because when we talk about the future and some new agreements, the phrase legally binding is often used, so the question arises whether the previous agreements were also legally binding," Simic says.

When asked if he believed that the topic of the CSM will really be on the table in Brussels, Simic says that he believes so because the president of Serbia will be at that table.

"I believe, first of all, because the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, will be sitting at that table, who will strongly defend it and insist on the obligation accepted by Pristina, and I do not believe that Vucic, like us in Kosovo and Metohija, believed in Pristina's signature. We believed that the EU, as a guarantor, would do everything to implement what was signed. After ten years, there is really little belief that the EU will be able to persuade Kurti to sign in this way with some anemic statements. My opinion is that Albin Kurti is now saying publicly, in the presence of European officials, that he will not form the CSM," Simic adds.

Simic points out that Kurti has the support of some EU and the Quint countries and that is the reason he is so confident in his statements against the formation of the CSM.

"The fact is that without the Western power centers, primarily the US and Quint, nothing happens in Kosovo, because they created an independent Kosovo, they still decide on everything today. Kurti's decision is not only his, there is strong support behind it, and that is why the room for maneuver of our negotiating team and President Vucic is extremely narrow and difficult because of everything that has happened in the last 24 years, but the fact is that this fight must continue with all legal and political means, to resolve all open issues through dialogue and not to allow the violence that Kurti uses against the Serbs to be the way to resolve anything," Simic says.

He adds that as representatives of the Serb List, they often had the opportunity to talk with high-ranking US officials and that despite disagreements, they found understanding.

"In conversations with various international representatives, we often come across a degree of understanding when it comes to representatives of the US. Of course, there are disagreements on many things, but I can say that they understand the problems of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, such as endangering their physical, personal, and legal security and land grabbing," Simic says.

Regarding the alleged expropriation that is being carried out in Leposavic and Zubin Potok, Simic says that it is a classic robbery of Serbian land.

"Imagine that something that is yours, your grandfather's, something that you live on because it is agricultural land, someone overnight, with 150 armed Albanian Special Forces in a purely Serbian environment, fences it off and says it is no longer yours and does not even ask you. They say that Pristina is carrying out expropriation, it is not expropriation - it is classic robbery, as if it were the Wild West. Not a single letter of the law on expropriation that Pristina passed was respected in this process. We have a situation where there are more Albanian bases of special units in four municipalities in the north than in any municipality in Kosovo, with the simple goal of creating the conditions for the Serbs to give up and say this is not life, we are leaving," he adds.

He points out that, unfortunately for Pristina, that did not happen and that the Serbs are persistent in their fight for justice and truth.

"Unfortunately for them, that did not happen. The Serbian hosts, in cooperation with the representatives of the Serb List and with strong cooperation with our country, President Vucic, and the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, managed to bring to the attention of the public, primarily international, that on European soil in the 21st century, someone is stealing Serbian land just like that because it has power. We managed to prevent them, so now they are retroactively trying to implement some steps that they were obliged to implement before that. There is an unequal struggle, political, legal, but also a struggle to make the public aware of the content of the conversation," Simic concluded.