Dacic: Pristina's decision to deny entry to patriarch disgraceful

BELGRADE - Serbian First Deputy PM and FM Ivica Dacic said on Monday a decision by the Pristina authorities to ban the movement of Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church was impermissible and demonstrated their brutality and lunacy.

"Can anyone expect a religious leader like the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church to be banned from visiting any part of the world outside of Serbia or within Serbia in the 21st century?" Dacic asked in a statement to Tanjug, noting that nothing like that had ever occurred to anyone.

It is disgraceful if the patriarch has to send a request to come to the territory of a part of Serbia that is under interim UN administration in order to visit the former seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church, he said.

"That has happened only in the difficult circumstances of the Turkish occupation, when the patriarch was banished from Kosovo-Metohija," Dacic said.

Such actions by Pristina are impermissible, he underscored.