Kosovo Office head prevented from traveling to Kosovo

Kosovo Office head prevented from traveling to Kosovo

Without any explanation offered, Djuric had to return from the Jarinje administrative crossing pursuant to a decision of the interim self-government institutions in Pristina, even though his visit to Kosovo and Metohija had been announced in a timely manner, the agency said.

Djuric was to lay a wreath at a monument dedicated to the soldiers fallen in the northern Kosovo town during the Second World War, open an exhibition of photographs from this historical period, and speak at the main gathering near the monument to Prince Lazar.

Djuric on Tuesday said the decision of the Pristina authorities was a disgraceful move - "showing their clear position toward not only the normalization of relations, but also toward today's holiday."

"In the hope that influential international representatives in Kosovo and Metohija will clearly express their position on today's anti-civilizational decision of Pristina, I congratulate the day of victory over fascism to Serbian citizens in Kosovo and Metohija," Djuric said in a statement.

He pointed out that Pristina's arbitrariness has dealt another serious blow to the process of normalization of relations and the efforts to create multiethnic society in the tradition of democracy and anti-fascism in Kosovo and Metohija.

According to Djuric, Day of Victory over fascism is an opportunity for the civilized world to distance itself from the ideologies of hatred and evil, while those who prevent that today are distancing themselves from the civilized world and the values it shares.

"No one can prevent citizens of Serbia from proudly fostering their anti-fascist traditions and the memory of the victims who fell liberating their country from Nazism and fascism - including from those in our region who during the Second World War sided with the ideology of evil," Djuric said.