Petkovic meets with CDU/CSU foreign policy adviser

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Petar Petkovic met on Tuesday with the foreign policy adviser of the CDU/CSU group in the German Bundestag, Franz Xaver Mauerer, to inform him of the extremely difficult security conditions for Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija, especially in the north of the province, where they are exposed to constant terror by the Pristina authorities and to institutional and all other forms of violence.

According to a statement released by the Office, Petkovic said tragic developments in Banjska, which he noted Belgrade had never wanted nor had anything to do with, were a result of unilateral, unlawful and violent moves by Pristina that had intensified over the past year in the north of Kosovo-Metohija, as well as daily provocations, groundless and arbitrary arrests of Serbs, seizure of Serb-owned land, terror by Pristina's special police - for which there was no place in the north of the province under agreements - beatings of Serb children, shootings of Serbs that, as a rule, no one was called to account for, and construction of illegal parapolice bases.

Petkovic informed Mauerer of steps and efforts Belgrade was constantly undertaking with a view to defusing tensions and normalising the situation in the north of Kosovo-Metohija, and noted a firm and unequivocal commitment to preserve peace and solve all open issues through the EU-facilitated dialogue.

On a daily basis, through its escalatory and unilateral moves, incendiary statements and inappropriate rhetoric that is not in the spirit of normalisation, Pristina is destroying and annulling all agreements reached so far, refusing clearly to establish a Community of Serb Municipalities, negotiated in Brussels a full ten years ago, Petkovic said.

Neither Belgrade nor the international community has a constructive or credible dialogue partner in Pristina and Albin Kurti and, despite open calls and a readiness of the Srpska lista to take part in early local elections in the four municipalities in the north of Kosovo-Metohija, Kurti is obstructing the process in every possible way with the sole objective of keeping in power his illegitimately elected mayors, who neither represent the choice nor the will of the Serb majority there, Petkovic said.

"There is no rule of law in Kosovo-Metohija - all decisions are made on ethnic grounds at the expense of the Serbs," Petkovic said, citing the example of arbitrary arrests of Serbs.

They are held in custody for months in inhumane conditions, without adequate medical care, while Pristina has released a member of the so-called Kosovo Security Force who fired at two young Serbs, Stefan and Milos Stojanovic, on Christmas Eve, Petkovic added.

"Belgrade will continue to do everything to preserve peace but, first and foremost, the responsibility rests upon Pristina, which is doing everything to make normal life impossible," he concluded.