Starovic: Kurti told falsehoods that we had more than 100 exercises with the Russians

The Ministry of Defense had already sent a denial to the British newspaper Guardian about the statement given to them by Albin Kurti about the fact that the Serbian Army had had 104 military exercises with Russia last year, and I wanted to deny it once again, the state secretary in that ministry, Nemanja Starovic, said today.

He added that this was just one of a series of lies that we had been exposed to recently and stated that in the regional and especially in Pristina media these days false news was being spread about the alleged weapons at the barricades held by the Serbs at the border crossings.

He assessed that the protest had been expressed democratically and expressed great respect for the Serbs who had been conducting peaceful and democratic protests for 11 days.

"It is the right way to express the protest and react to all the threats that come primarily from Albin Kurti and which should be condemned in the strongest terms," Starovic said.

According to him, KFOR and EULEX should protect those who were threatened in Kosovo, which were, currently, the Serbs in the north of Kosovo, and if that did not happen, the Serbian Army was ready to react.

"I have to remind you that we submitted a formal request for the return of part of the armed forces of Serbia to Kosovo in accordance with the UN Resolution 1244. We will wait for the answer and based on its wording we will define our next steps,” Starovic said.

He said that it was scandalous that neither the family nor the lawyer of the arrested ex-Kosovo policeman Dejan Pantic, nor the head of the EULEX mission knew where he was and assessed that it had been a case of kidnapping.

He reminded that the media had announced that 600 Serbs in the north of Kosovo were on arrest lists, and concluded that this was a message to the Serbs that they were not welcome there.