Vucic: De-escalation does not depend on Serbia, not a single Albanian has been shot, but six Serbs since the beginning of the year

The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, said that he discussed with the Quint representatives today about all the current events in the north of Kosovo, as well as about the arrest of three armed men who had been in the territory of central Serbia.

"Unlike you, we adhere to the UN Charter and the UN Resolution, and for us, Kosovo and Metohija is a part of the territory of Serbia in accordance with the UN Charter, just as Donbas is a part of the territory of Ukraine in accordance with the UN Charter, the same one you support when it comes to Ukraine, you don't support when it comes to Serbia.

Vucic also pointed out that there had been talk of Pristina's new bans on the entry of Serbian goods and people who had cars with Serbian license plates, as well as the possibility of de-escalating the situation in the north.

Vucic said that the situation and de-escalation do not depend on Serbia because it had not done anything to escalate these relations.

"Not a single Albanian was shot, not a single Albanian was wounded, but six Serbs in the last six months. And at the protests in Zvecan, which were said to be violent, not a single Albanian was shot, nor was anybody else, but a Serb, Dragisa Galjak, was shot twice," Vucic stated.

Vucic emphasized that Rados Petrovic and Dusan Obrenovic, who had been just sitting peacefully at the protest, had been arrested and beaten at the protests.

Commenting on yesterday's incidents and the arrest of Albanians in Serbia, Vucic said that no one had beaten and harassed them.

"Unlike some others, we behave as a serious country and that is how we will treat the persons who were detained, but they were not beaten, nor were they detained, unlike the Serbs who are beaten and mutilated when they are arrested by the Albanians, on which everybody is silent," Vucic said.

He expressed the hope that Europe and the US would react and influence those who wanted to write a "war biography in their CV" and said that Serbia would continue to fight for the preservation of peace and stability.

Vucic: I hope that the EU and the US will have enough strength to reason with those who behave irrationally

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said today that Serbia would do everything to preserve the peace at any cost. He stated that the Serbian police had done a routine job in arresting the Special Forces from Kosovo.

"It is the routine work of our authorities, and it has never happened before that members of our army and our police cross the administrative line, because they have a direct order from the commander-in-chief and all our forces to prevent this from happening. If you ask KFOR, they will tell you to say that Serbia has never done that," Vucic said.

He added that on the other hand, there were several things that were very important.

"On the other hand, there are a few things that are very important and that you must know. Let's assume that Kurti told the truth, and of course, I'm talking about a man who loves the truth, that he told the truth, he himself admitted that they violated all norms of international law. He said that they had been 300 meters inside the administrative territory of Kosovo and Metohija. Do you know that they have no right to be there; do you know that when they come within a kilometer they must report to KFOR 36 hours earlier? They have no right to be there and they are not allowed to be there according to the military-technical agreement that we have signed," the President of Serbia said.

He asked what they had been doing there with the long guns.

"What were you doing there? What were you doing with the long guns? Why did you walk? Do you want me to tell you what those who were arrested tell us? They can say whatever they want afterward. GPS doesn't work for me, so I was looking for mushrooms. Where are the mushrooms now? They weren't caught within 10 meters of our territory, where someone was waiting for them in ambush, but much, much further. What are you doing with long guns? - to kill someone who was trying to transfer a Coke or a bottle of sparkling water or to racket them. Why are you trampling on the Military-technical Agreement?" Vucic asked.

He added that Kurti himself had admitted that he had violated the agreement.

"You yourself admitted as the Prime Minister of the Provisional Institutions that you violated the agreement. You made a statement yourself because you don't know it; because you don't read the documents; because it doesn't interest you. You don't understand that there are certain limitations because you don't really care and that's why you can give that arrogant answer - our police can do what they want. They can't do what they want,“ the President of Serbia said.

He emphasized that he had offered all the recordings.

"I offered all the footage. The Serbian soldiers were no closer to that place than 19.5 kilometers by land and 5.1 kilometers by air. We are ready to provide complete records, everything that is needed, and all the footage of both the police and the Army. We offered the persons who arrested ours to bring experts and their polygraphists and to ask them two questions, “Did you participate in the arrest of these persons and did you arrest them in the territory of central Serbia or Kosovo and Metohija? And all persons are ready to answer those questions," Vucic said.

He added that if someone had wanted to cause an incident, he would have done it differently.

"Why do we need that? If someone wanted to cause incidents, they would have solved it differently, and they would not arrest without a shot being fired, without a single slap, and without anything. This is how a serious state behaves, not a quasi-state, which goes on a rampage by mutilating someone just because they don't like it. I asked today, explain to me again why people are in detention, everyone says they didn't do anything - KFOR, NATO tell you they didn't do anything, that they sat, that NATO dragged them into that circle, so they didn't touch anything. Why were they beaten up, why were they arrested?" the President of Serbia asked.

He also asked why the decision had been made to ban the entry of Serbian goods into Kosovo.

"Why are you all pretending to be naive, they all know everything and understand everything, but it was their child that was created illegally in 1999 and then formalized in 2008 in the wild over Serbia without a decision of the UN Security Council, they trampled on all international legal norms and now they have to save themselves from all that, and that's why you can't say it so clearly and loudly, and that's why we're in a terribly difficult position," Vucic said.

He added that he knew what was happening in Kosovo and that "literally everything is boiling".

"Children want to die from the age of 12, 13, and 14, which we have to prevent. They are fed up with Kurti; they are fed up with lies. Tonight, when the police came by Lepoosavic, the children were chasing cars from 12, to 13 years old. No one will tolerate them anymore neither them nor their terror. Someone has to see it and understand it. And now you are going to say that you will not get bread from Raska. So how will they manage? What will their grandfathers, grandmothers, parents, and those children eat? They get bread from Raska - 80 percent of the bread. What are we going to do with milk since they don't let any truck pass, and they put long guns here and say they control the direction, and they go to pick mushrooms, they say that their GPS doesn't work and that they don't know how to use binoculars. We have everything recorded," the President said.

He added that he did not know exactly where the border was from their point of view, but from the Serbian point of view there was no border, because there was an administrative line.

"It is a terribly difficult situation for us, we are trying to preserve peace at all costs, but we are dealing with people who want no peace at all costs. We have to fight and trust in common sense and I hope that the EU and the US have enough strength to reason with those who behave irrationally; that's my only hope. If not, we are where we are, and we can’t change that. We will protect our people, we will protect them and we will protect our country," Vucic said.