Djuric: We will request establishment of Community, zero tolerance for Pristina's moves

NEW YORK - At Wednesday's UN Security Council session on Kosovo-Metohija, Serbia will request strong implementation of the Brussels Agreement and establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities, as well as zero tolerance for Pristina's unilateral and uncoordinated moves aimed at ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Serbian FM Marko Djuric announced on Tuesday.

"Tomorrow I will also look back on increasingly callous, increasingly brazen public statements by both Mr (Albin) Kurti and (Djeljaj) Svecla and other leaders of the (Pristina) provisional institutions who are now publicly saying, and boasting, that they have no intention of establishing a Community of Serb Municipalities," Djuric told reporters in New York ahead of the UNSC session on a new semi-annual report on UNMIK.

They are publicly boasting that they have no plans to comply with Article 9 of the Brussels Agreement, under which ethnic representation in the police force in the north of Kosovo-Metohija should reflect the ethnic composition of the local population, he said.

The leaders of the Pristina authorities do not even respect their own constitution as, following verification by a two-third majority in Pristina's assembly, the Agreement has become a part of the constitution of the so-called Kosovo, Djuric said.

He said Serbia would be firm in protecting the rights of Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija and present to the widest international community what had happened between two semi-annual reports on UNMIK.

"And what happened is just horrible," he said, adding that Kosovo-Metohija Serbs had been denied additional collective rights.

He noted that, during the reporting period, the Kurti regime had raided the offices of provisional authorities that were employing 5,800 Serbs.

"What is even worse is that the raid on those provisional authorities has made impossible the provision of some of the most basic services for Serbs in the north of Kosovo-Metohija, which contributes to creating impossible living conditions for the Serbs," Djuric said.

Serbia's message to the entire international community is that the example of Serbs in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija shows who wants to be on the side of the UN Charter and the most fundamental principles of humaneness, Djuric said.

He noted that Kosovo-Metohija Serbs were isolated, ghettoised and deprived of the most basic services in 21st-century Europe.