Petkovic meets with Ziadeh

BELGRADE - The director of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Petar Petkovic met with Caroline Ziadeh, head of UNMIK - the UN mission in Kosovo-Metohija - in Belgrade on Monday to discuss the political and security situation in Serbia's southern autonomous province ahead of the upcoming regular UN Security Council session on a report on UNMIK.

Petkovic said the relevant reporting period was characterised by a large number of unilateral, unlawful and violent moves by Pristina that he noted had, on a daily basis, confirmed the human and political disenfranchisement of Serbs in the province.

He said the Pristina authorities had closed many Serbian institutions across the territory of the province - institutions that should have served as the foundation for establishing a Community of Serb Municipalities, which the Pristina authorities have been refusing to form for nearly 12 years now.

The closure of the institutions has threatened payments of salaries, pensions and other incomes to Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija, also threatening their bare existence, Petkovic said.

"Undoubtedly, that leads to a definite exodus and expulsion of Serbs from the province, aimed at creating an ethnically clean Kosovo-Metohija, which is Albin Kurti's old and open desire," an official statement quoted Petkovic as noting.

Petkovic also spoke about numerous irregularities and vote fraud in elections in the province, which he noted put a question mark over the electoral will of Kosovo-Metohija Serbs.

He also said Belgrade expected the UNMIK report to present objective information on recent unlawful and violent moves by Pristina as well as on the daily terror and harassment targeting Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija.

Petkovic noted that Belgrade certainly expected the report to contain the information that, for quite a while now, Pristina has been refusing to allow the Serbian patriarch to visit the faithful and Serbian holy sites in Kosovo-Metohija.