Dačić: Priština continues to ignore honoring key provisions of the Brussels Agreement

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić said today that Belgrade remains committed to having a constructive dialogue with Priština and to implementing the agreements reached so far, while Priština keeps failing to take the necessary relevant steps, especially concerning the Community of Serbian Municipalities.

"I regret having to note that the lack of political will and a persistent institutional crisis in Priština have lead to the continued failure to implement the key provisions laid down in the Brussels Agreement which are related to the establishment and functioning of the Community," he said.

Stressing that the circumstances in which the Serbian community lives in Kosovo and Metohija remain very complex, Dačić underlined that Serbia expects from the international community, primarily the UN, to continue in helping to build trust as the only foundation for a normal life for all in Kosovo and Metohija.

Serbia views its commitment to EU integrations is the main driving force towards normalizing relations between Belgrade and Priština, and is hoping that the European Union would continue to facilitate the dialogue, said the minister.

Speaking at a session of the UN Security Council, discussing the operation of the UNMIK in Kosovo-Metohija, Dačić emphasized that the consolidation of the presence and the role of the UNMIK is of particular importance for the Republic of Serbia, and especially for Serbs and other non-Albanian communities living in Kosovo-Metohija.

The Republic of Serbia expects, he added, that the UNMIK would continue to execute its mandate in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

"Status neutral role of the UNMIK is pivotal and absolute in the process of coordinating the operation of the international presence and stabilizing situation in Kosovo and Metohija," Dačić said.

Dačić recalled that over 200,000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija today live in Central Serbia, having been forced to leave their homes as a result of persecution and threats.

"Sustainable return is achieved by only 1.9% of the displaced. That is why I wish reiterate my question to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General Z. Tannin, as I already did in my previous address to this Council, to explain why this information is not included in his quarterly reports, and whether a devastating figure of 1.9% should be accepted as an established fact, and something that we need to reconcile ourselves to?", the Serbian Foreign Minister urged.

He warned that the violence against the non-Albanian communities, particularly targeting returnees, inevitably raises concerns among the potential returnees regarding the security situation in Kosovo and Metohija.

Dačić further doubly underlined the strong negative impact that the persistent attacks on cultural and religious heritage have on the inter-ethnic relations between communities, citing examples such as the burglarizing the Serbian Orthodox church in the village Pejčić (Prizren municipality), the desecration of the Temple of Christ the Savior, whose sanctity has been targeted by the Albanians since 1999, and which has been used as a landfill for years, or the graphite spraying on the wall of the church of St. Nicholas in Priština, praising ISIS, a terrorist formation which induced the united action of the entire international community.

"Such attacks on the Serbian cultural and religious heritage, as well as on our identity, represent painful testimony that the laws which are supposed to protect and promote the rights of communities and their members in Kosovo and Metohija are merely dead letters," Dačić said.

"Given the fact that the report we are discussing for adoption here today, makes almost no mention of the ethnically motivated attacks on Serbs, I will now comment only on some of the incidents which took place during this reporting period: attacks on the Serb returnees and their property in the villages and Berkovo and Pasjan, stone pelting at the houses owned by the returnees in Klina and Prizren, arson and attacks with explosive devices at the homes of Serbs in Orahovac and Gjilan," he said.

Dačić pointed out that strong action is necessary in order to achieve durable solutions for displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija, including addressing and executing their property and legal claims. He stressed that the most dangerous consequence of the systematic appearance the ethnically motivated attacks is that eventually everyone, including the international community, gets used to the de facto impunity for the crimes committed against Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija.

"To this day, the property rights of the Serbs remain jeopardized throughout Kosovo and Metohija, especially by the sell-off of the companies located in the Serbian communities. The economic situation of Serbs and other minority communities in the Province is largely characterized by legal and physical insecurity, as well as by the numerous cases of the usurped property that cannot be restituted to its rightful owners," he said.

The consequences of such activities undertaken by the Kosovo Agency for Privatization in the Serbian communities in Kosovo and Metohija are best visible in the municipality of Štrpce, where the agency has violently usurped and liquidated several major economic entities since the mid-2014, the same ones employing most people and forming the backbone of the whole community, the factory "Lola", the "Mladost" department store, their agricultural cooperative, veterinary station, hotel "Junior" and the National Park "The Šara Mountain".

"Radicalization of the political situation and the deteriorating security situation, due to political turmoil, along with the escalating extremism, pose a threat to all the inhabitants of Kosovo and Metohija. However, it is a rule that the most vulnerable are the returnees in the ethnically mixed areas," he said.

Dačić warned that the already unstable security situation in Kosovo and Metohija has been additionally jeopardized by the troubling trend of the increased extremism and radicalism.

"According to the data from January 2016, approximately 300 Kosovo Albanians and 36 ethnic Albanian women have joined the Islamic State fighters in Syria. This is the largest foreigner percentage of fighters among the army ranks of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in terms of the ratio between them and the total number of inhabitants in the territory of their origin," said the minister.

Otherwise, the foreign partner security services in Belgrade repeatedly provided information that the unofficial number of extremists from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija fighting in foreign battlefields is in vast discrepancy with the official data, and that the figure approximates 900, said Dačić.