Vucic: Serbia will do everything it can to help its people in Kosovo and Metohija

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said today that Serbia would do everything it could to help its people in Kosovo.

Asked by reporters whether the letter he had sent to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was a message to Albin Kurti that Serbia would not stand idly by in the face of unilateral actions that endangered Serbs, Vucic replied that if he answered in those terms, everyone would report that "Vucic is preparing for war."

"Serbia will do everything it can to help its people in Kosovo and Metohija," the President stressed.

Regarding the letter, he clarified that he had said he believed he would speak with Rutte soon, but that no conversation had been scheduled.

"I said that I believe we will speak. Although we do not have a scheduled conversation, I believe we will speak at the beginning or in the middle of the week. We are in regular communication, naturally, about the situation in Kosovo and Metohija and in the region. I believe we will speak within the next two or three days," Vucic said during a visit to firefighters battling a wildfire in Deliblatska Pescara.

Last week, Vucic sent a letter to Rutte in which he expressed deep concern over KFOR's decision to withdraw from the Ibar Bridge and include the Kosovo Police in the "security architecture" around Visoki Decani Monastery.

He stressed that the move had been premature and that KFOR's security assessments had failed to adequately recognize all risks to the security of the Serbian and other non-Albanian populations in northern Kosovo, as well as to the security of the monastery, which he described as a jewel of Serbian and world cultural heritage.