Petkovic: Synchronised anti-Serbian campaign aimed at destabilising region

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Petar Petkovic said on Monday a synchronised anti-Serbian campaign and concerted attacks on Serbian President Alaksandar Vucic, Serbia and Kosovo-Metohija Serbs were underway by Zagreb and Pristina with the aim of destabilising the situation and causing fresh tensions in the Western Balkan region.

Petkovic said the so-called Kosovo FM's latest interview for Croatia's Vecernji list paper - which he noted had in fact been dictated by Pristina's PM Albin Kurti - was a part of a media and propaganda war and had only one goal: demonisation of Vucic and the Serbs by those who were the most responsible for all conflicts in the region in the past two decades and guilty of the largest-scale plight and ethnic cleansing of Serbs since WWII.

"When it has no economic success, projects and new jobs to speak of because that is wishful thinking for it, or peace or compromise because those are forbidden terms for it, Pristina is beating the drums of war and rattling the sabre again to conceal the traces of its catastrophic policy and avoid the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities, signed up to and agreed in the dialogue a full 11 years ago," Petkovic said in a statement released by the Office for Kosovo-Metohija.

Noting that the three-page interview contained as many as 29 references to Vucic, Petkovic said this indicated Vucic was the biggest barrier and a thorn in the side to all those who wanted to see a weak, defeated Serbia.

"However hard you try, that will never happen as long as Serbia is led by the one you are fighting against so fiercely! We will continue to preserve peace and advocate compromise and sustainable normalisation of relations, and Pristina may continue to spread hatred and intolerance through incendiary rhetoric and invoke new conflicts. Their (Pristina's) words speak about them," Petkovic said.