Vucic: Only Serbs are under threat in Kosovo-Metohija

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday Serbia would be trying to have the best possible communication with NATO in the future and that he had told Stoltenberg the Serbs were the only population under threat in Kosovo-Metohija and that almost 13 per cent of them had left the north of the province in the past year due to harassment and pressure by the Pristina regime.

"We discussed all important issues for over an hour and a half and, as Stoltenberg said and as I can confirm, cooperation with NATO and Kfor is important for us in the hope that we will ensure some level of security to Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija," Vucic said at a press conference with Stoltenberg in Belgrade.

Commenting on Stoltenberg's statement that Kfor was ensuring peace and security to all communities in Kosovo-Metohija, Vucic said there had been "no need to ensure peace and security to anyone else but the Serbs, who are the only population that has been under threat or attacked."

"Only the Serbs have been attacked since 2001, especially since (Pristina's PM) Albin Kurti has been in power," he noted.

"I informed Stoltenberg of the fact that almost 13 per cent of Serbs have left the north of Kosovo-Metohija in the past year alone due to enormous pressure, arrests, harassment and threats coming from the Pristina regime," Vucic said.

"If that is not violence - and I know, we are not talking about NATO here, but about the so-called collective West - then I do not know what is," he said.

The West is interested only in the Banjska case and the clashes in Zvecan before that, Vucic said.

"I have to say we have a different view on what happened but that we understand well what the Western and NATO demands are. We will be trying to have the best possible communication with NATO in the future as well," Vucic said.