Cultural heritage on agenda in Vienna

Cultural heritage on agenda in Vienna

The plan also envisages 45 protection zones around the most significant churches, monasteries and historical monuments.

Protection zones are planned for the Patriarchate of Peć, the monasteries Visoki Dečani, Devič and Gorioč, Budisavci, the historical town Prizren, the village Velika Hoča and a number of other localities.

The proposal to form a Serbian entity was the focal point of debate during yesterday’s talks. Belgrade team coordinator Leon Kojen said the Albanians were very unsettled when the Serbian negotiators brought up the issue.

Kojen said his team had reiterated the request to form nine news Serb municipalities. “The Serb entity is indispensable, especially since a year has passed and the negotiations have not moved an inch.

The Serb community in Kosovo and Metohija must have a focal point, they must be allowed to pursue a common interest and we all have to be able to say with a clear conscience that the Serb municipalities and the Church with all the monasteries are politically and culturally under one roof and that is the Serb entity”.

Priština is against the idea of a Serb entity in Kosovo, Kosovo team member Adrian Djini said. „This entity and the forming of such territories has in essence brought much suffering to the people in the Balkans. We are trying to implement a civic concept within an independent state based on the individual, the citizen, regardless of their ethnic background. Of course there are problems, but this is what we want, this is our vision.“

The other coordinator of the Serb team Slobodan Samardžić said they had also raised the issue of establishing municipalities with non-Albanian communities other than Serbs, such as the Gorani and Roma, but added that the Albanians opposed this as well.