Djuric: Kurti has no carte blanche support from US

BELGRADE - Serbian Ambassador to the US Marko Djuric said on Monday Kosovo's ethnic Albanians had no carte blanche support from the US for everything they did and that Pristina's PM Albin Kurti was greatly deluded and "still living in 1999."

The fact Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church has been banned from visiting the Patriarchate of Pec and that two Kosovo Serb youths were attacked on Christmas Eve has not gone unnoticed in the US, Djuric told Pink TV.

"The ban for the patriarch had a resounding effect because it is an unbelievable scandal. A number of US Congress members have been informed of that and they have exerted pressure on Pristina. Every day, we will keep saying what has been done to those boys and to the patriarch," he said.

He said his impression was that Kurti was fighting personal, internal wars.

"He is a man who is too personal to be able to run complex reconciliation processes, and many of my collocutors in the US administration are aware he is trying to manipulate with the tragedy in the east of Europe and push Serbia into 1999," Djuric noted.

He said Kurti's policy had created an atmosphere conducive to attacks on Serbs and noted that, in their insincere condemnations of the attack on the two youths, Kurti and his "Self-Determination" party had even tried to deny they were Serbs, referring to them as "Slavic-Orthodox Kosovars" instead.

Djuric said the fact the perpetrator of the attack was a member of the so-called "Kosovo Security Force" was no surprise at all as it was a highly militarised formation that was illegal by nature.

Djuric he said he was skeptical the attacker, who has been placed in one-month detention, would be convicted.

"The past decades teach us that crimes against Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija remain unpunished. No one has been punished for March 17 (2004) or for the expulsion of Serbs in 1999," Djuric said.

Commenting on KFOR's refusal to allow a return of Serbian army and police troops to Kosovo-Metohija, Djuric said Serbia's obligation to protect Kosovo Serbs was not terminated by anyone's response to any request and that Serbia would continue to do everything to protect them.