Petkovic writes to Lajcak over Pristina's police raid on Postal Savings Bank offices

BELGRADE - In a letter to Brussels's special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue Miroslav Lajcak, the director of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Petar Petkovic informed the EU official of Pristina's recent police raid on the offices of Serbia's Postal Savings Bank in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo-Metohija.

The so-called "Kosovo Police" were deliberately equipped with long weapons and full combat gear to intimidate civilians and employees before they closed the bank's five offices, Petkovic noted in the letter, seen by Tanjug.

He called on Lajcak to inform the EU member states in an authentic manner of Pristina's destabilising actions and the trampling of dialogue, and requested concrete steps to prevent any unilateral and violent acts by Pristina in the future.

He added that the raid was a continuation of ethnically motivated violence against the Serbs and aimed at disrupting their daily lives and creating unbearable living conditions for them.

He noted that the raid directly trampled the EU's authority underfoot and was a direct attack on Lajcak's publicly expressed expectations that he might be able to call another meeting on Pristina's decision to ban the Serbian dinar and dinar cash operations in Kosovo-Metohija.

However, through its actions, Pristina has demonstrated it does not care about talks, the positions of the EU or the lives of the Serbs, Petkovic said, noting that the raid had taken place just three days after the most recent round of the Brussels dialogue.

He added that, unless Lajcak urgently informed the EU member states of all the facts in an authentic manner and clearly identified Pristina as the destabilising factor, "Pristina's plan of killing the dialogue will substantially be accomplished."

"That will further deteriorate the already catastrophic position of the Serbs who are under occupation and terror by Pristina," Petkovic wrote in the letter, noting that now was the last moment to prevent Pristina from taking such unilateral and escalatory measures in the future.