FM: Priština not respecting deals, UN must stay

NEW YORK Foreign Minister Ivan Mrkic called on Pristina on Thursday to respect the agreements reached so far and asked the UN to stay in Kosovo and Metohija. The UN is an "honest broker and a guarantor that the other side will not undermine the agreements already reached," he told a UN Security Council session in New York dedicated to the latest report on Kosovo submitted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. FM: Pristina not respecting deals, UN must stay Mrkic reiterated that Serbia has not recognized and will not recognize the unilaterally declared independence of its southern province, and expressed gratitude to the UN members who have done likewise. He pointed to Pristina's obstructions in the implementation of the agreement on normalization of relations signed in Brussels on April 19, and warned that these must not be easily overlooked. The Brussels agreement was signed so as facilitate the solution of questions of vital importance for all people in the province, hopeful that Pristina would share our enthusiasm in overcoming the problems that we have been faced with far too long now, Mrkic said. “However, it is with regret that I have to state that this has not always been the case. We do not know if there is a political will in Pristina, but we do know that concrete results in solving people's problems, particularly those that beset minority ethnic groups in the Province, are in very short supply,” the minister said and underscored that the continued stay of the United Nations in Kosovo and Metohija is of paramount importance for future developments. “If indeed we long for a future in which all will be able to live in peace and without fear for existence, we have to solidify the foundations laid down by the Brussels agreement,” Mrkic said. “On the long road, in addition to good will and hard work, we also need an honest broker, not someone who will do our job for us, but someone who will see to it that all the participants in the process be guided by the idea of long-term betterment for all our people rather than by the idea of predominance of the ethnic majority,” Mrkic said. “It is exactly in this role of impartial overseer of the process of historic reconciliation that the United Nations is perceived by the Republic of Serbia,” the Serbian minister said. “Just as the signing of the Brussels Agreement would not have been possible this year without EU mediation, so, I am afraid, the implementation of the agreements may not be possible without an active participation by the UN,” Mrkic said. “Firmly resolved to prove that Serbia is up to the challenges and tasks that it is presented with, we also need a guarantor that the other side will not undermine the agreements already reached,” Mrkic said. “In view of the enormous efforts invested by the Republic of Serbia so far in finding solutions acceptable to all sides, we would like to see - which we don't - the other side investing efforts to bring about very necessary changes in the field. Apparently, the status quo suits the other side much more,” the minister said. “That's why we assume that they want international actors to leave the Province,” Mrkic noted and pointed to Pristina's efforts to end UNMIK mandate. Noting that the two sides apparently have different goals in this matter, Mrkic reiterated that Belgrade still considers “that the Brussels Agreement is only the beginning, not the end of the normalisation of relations,” and warned against the series of attempts to undermine agreements. As an example of such an attitude by Pristina, the Serbian minister listed the amendment to the Budget Law adopted in the Assembly of Kosovo which violated the prior agreement between the two sides achieved by the Working Group on the Implementation of the IBM Agreement last January. Under the Agreement, the funds collected from the transfer of goods for individuals and legal entities in the municipalities in northern Kosovo and Metohija are to be credited to the Fund for the Development of the North. Nevertheless, the amendments adopted in the Assembly provide for the establishment of a Development Trust Fund for the Association of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija, so that the funds would be initially credited to the Kosovo Fund (Treasury/Budget) and only then to the Fund for the Development of the North, Mrkic explained. Another example of the breach of trust is the situation in Brdjani where, according to the Report of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Farid Zarif, the Serbs protested because of the attempts by internally displaced Albanians to build houses in that part of northern Kosovska Mitrovica. “The truth of the matter, though, is the persistence of Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija to alter the ethnic structure of Brdjani through land grab and building without a permit,” the minister said and added that local Serbs protested only after they found out that Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija were planning to build 172 apartments in that locality for the veterans of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army who had never lived there prior to 1999. Mrkic proposed that Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Farid Zarif should draw an exact list of Kosovo and Metohija Albanians who lived in Brdjani prior to June 1999 and present it with the next Report. “Building confidence in Kosovo institutions among minority communities is not helped by the signing of the military agreement with Albania,” Mrkic said and noted that the exchange of military personnel, provided for by the agreement, would add to the anxiety of minority communities. “It should be borne in mind that, at least in theory, the agreement provides for the possibility that full military force be deployed as the Republic of Albania does possess heavy weapons, whereas, at least formally, the so-called Kosovo Security Forces do not,” Mrkic said. “We do not expect that Pristina will use this agreement with Albania for military actions in the field, but we have to highlight the consequence: the intimidation of minority communities,” the Serbian minister said and added that likewise, nobody believed the pogrom of Serbs was possible before it happened in 2004 in the presence of the international community or that, midway through negotiations, a unilateral move, "such as the dispatch of Pristina's special force to northern Kosovo and Metohija in the summer of 2011, was possible." “If we want to solidify the trust that we only have begun to build, we now need much more than assumptions; we need guarantees that force will not be used,” Mrkic underscored. Mrkic proposed that the United Nations secretary-general requests his Special Representative Farid Zarif to prepare, for the next Report to the UN Security Council (UNSC), an exhaustive review of the situation in the areas south of the Ibar river in Kosovo and Metohija populated by Serbs, Gorani and other non-Albanians. Speaking at UNSC session in New York, Mrkic said that the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, both in the north of the Serbian province and south of the Ibar, still face a lot of problems. “The property rights of Serbs are violated throughout Kosovo and Metohija, in particular by indiscriminate sales of companies in Serb communities to Albanian businessmen through the Kosovo Privatization Agency,” Mrkic said. He recalled in this connection the position maintained within the United Nations that the Kosovo Privatization Agency is not a legal successor of the Kosovo Trust Agency since it has not been established under a law in force in Kosovo and Metohija in accordance with Resolution 1244 and continues to exist contrary to the position of UNMIK taken after the EU withheld support funds in June 2008. Mrkic urged for re-examining the decision on funding the Kosovo Privatization Agency, as it has abused its powers in the interest of the majority Albanian community on a number of occasions. According to relevant UNHCR data, there still remain 210,148 internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija living in Serbia today and over 70 percent of them are Serbs, Mrkic said. Mrkic said that the current UN report about the situation in Kosovo and Metohija said that the number of incidents against minority communities has been reduced compared to the preceding period, but remains silent on the number of discovered and tried perpetrators and the number of cases, solved and unsolved. “No mention is made of the measures taken by the authorities, either by police, prosecutors or courts,” he said, adding that “the practice of not punishing the perpetrators of violence against Serbs is thus continued.” “We still do not know who killed 14 reapers at Staro Gracko way back in 1999 following the arrival of the international presences or who shot the Serbian children as they played on the river at Gorazdevac in 2003… The pogrom of March 2004 which resulted in 19 dead and 4,000 displaced has not initiated a single court proceeding yet, either,” said the Serbian foreign minister. None of these cases has been solved so far, which leads us to believe that the "culture of impunity" remains in Kosovo and Metohija, he added. Mrkic stressed that minority communities surely do not feel safe in an environment like this. “Were the environment at least a bit different, we would witness more returns and our liaison officer who assumed duty in June would not be the 118th Serb in Pristina, the city that numbered 40,000 of them not so long ago,” the Serbian minister said. There have been only 302 Serb returnees to Kosovo and Metohija in 2012, against 464 in 2011, which testifies to a continued decrease in the already small number of returnees, he added. Mrkic pointed out that Pristina resorts to arrests under secret indictments based on unfounded charges for war crimes that are arbitrarily pressed against Serbs as one of the ways to intimidate the Serb population in Kosovo and Metohija. He took the opportunity to call on EULEX, which is competent to establish responsibilities for war crimes, to make the list of indictments public to calm the tensions in the Serb community, whose members live in fear of unjust arrests. Mrkic reiterated the importance of full and effective investigation of the allegations about kidnapping and killing people during and after the armed conflict in Kosovo for the purpose of organ trafficking. “Serbia is ready to continue its cooperation with the EULEX investigation team in order to establish the truth and to achieve justice for the victims. We are hopeful that the investigation will yield results soon,” he said. Mrkic condemned all attempts to “re-name the cultural and historical heritage of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija as "the Kosovo heritage", i.e. to 'Kosovize' it.” “These attempts are tantamount to attempts to destroy the evidence of the centuries-long existence and survival of Serbs in this area, all for the purpose of promoting the so-called independence of Kosovo,” he said. In conclusion, Mrkic said that the political will of Pristina expressed only in words is not enough as concrete results are needed to build a society which offers equal rights and protection to all its members. Mrkic said that great efforts and concrete steps are needed to provide physical safety and property security to minority communities, adding that the UN report stated that they are to be made by Pristina and that the process will evolve much easier and faster with UNMIK's assistance. “Aware of the opportunity presented to it, the Republic of Serbia expects continued assistance from the international community, the United Nations, in particular, on the road of confidence-building, which we believe is the only sound foundation to bring about normal life for all in Kosovo and Metohija,” Mrkic said. (Tanjug, file) "No role" Kosovo Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday to discuss a transformation of UNMIK into a UN political office, the biggest role of which would lie in supporting Kosovo on its path to the membership in the global organisation. Hoxhaj called on the UNSC to implement tangible measures so that Kosovo could claim its place in the family of free democratic countries. There is no doubt UNMIK had an active role in the stabilisation of Kosovo in the period from 1999 to 2007 and now it is important to admit that it no longer has any role in Kosovo, Hoxhaj said. He underscored that it is high time for the UN to discuss removing Kosovo from its agenda and adopt a new resolution that would recognise the progress made so far. Hoxhaj also called on the local population to take part in the local elections in Kosovo which should be staged on November 3, and noted that Belgrade has the crucial role in encouragement of the local population to go to elections. The Kosovo minister noted that progress was made in the previous quarter of the year in terms of closing Serbia's police offices in northern Kosovo municipalities, but he also said that no progress has been made in the judiciary sector. In terms of the fate of the missing persons, Hoxhaj said that joint efforts need to be invested and that Belgrade and the international community need to cooperate so as to find a solution to the issue. Tanjug

FM: Priština not respecting deals, UN must stay

Mrkić reiterated that Serbia has not recognized and will not recognize the unilaterally declared independence of its southern province, and expressed gratitude to the UN members who have done likewise.

He pointed to Priština's obstructions in the implementation of the agreement on normalization of relations signed in Brussels on April 19, and warned that these must not be easily overlooked.

The Brussels agreement was signed so as facilitate the solution of questions of vital importance for all people in the province, hopeful that Priština would share our enthusiasm in overcoming the problems that we have been faced with far too long now, Mrkić said.

“However, it is with regret that I have to state that this has not always been the case. We do not know if there is a political will in Priština, but we do know that concrete results in solving people's problems, particularly those that beset minority ethnic groups in the Province, are in very short supply,” the minister said and underscored that the continued stay of the United Nations in Kosovo and Metohija is of paramount importance for future developments.

“If indeed we long for a future in which all will be able to live in peace and without fear for existence, we have to solidify the foundations laid down by the Brussels agreement,” Mrkić said.

“On the long road, in addition to good will and hard work, we also need an honest broker, not someone who will do our job for us, but someone who will see to it that all the participants in the process be guided by the idea of long-term betterment for all our people rather than by the idea of predominance of the ethnic majority,” Mrkić said.

“It is exactly in this role of impartial overseer of the process of historic reconciliation that the United Nations is perceived by the Republic of Serbia,” the Serbian minister said.

“Just as the signing of the Brussels Agreement would not have been possible this year without EU mediation, so, I am afraid, the implementation of the agreements may not be possible without an active participation by the UN,” Mrkić said.

“Firmly resolved to prove that Serbia is up to the challenges and tasks that it is presented with, we also need a guarantor that the other side will not undermine the agreements already reached,” Mrkić said.

“In view of the enormous efforts invested by the Republic of Serbia so far in finding solutions acceptable to all sides, we would like to see - which we don't - the other side investing efforts to bring about very necessary changes in the field. Apparently, the status quo suits the other side much more,” the minister said.

“That's why we assume that they want international actors to leave the Province,” Mrkić noted and pointed to Priština's efforts to end UNMIK mandate.

Noting that the two sides apparently have different goals in this matter, Mrkić reiterated that Belgrade still considers “that the Brussels Agreement is only the beginning, not the end of the normalisation of relations,” and warned against the series of attempts to undermine agreements.

As an example of such an attitude by Priština, the Serbian minister listed the amendment to the Budget Law adopted in the Assembly of Kosovo which violated the prior agreement between the two sides achieved by the Working Group on the Implementation of the IBM Agreement last January.

Under the Agreement, the funds collected from the transfer of goods for individuals and legal entities in the municipalities in northern Kosovo and Metohija are to be credited to the Fund for the Development of the North.

Nevertheless, the amendments adopted in the Assembly provide for the establishment of a Development Trust Fund for the Association of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija, so that the funds would be initially credited to the Kosovo Fund (Treasury/Budget) and only then to the Fund for the Development of the North, Mrkić explained.

Another example of the breach of trust is the situation in Brdjani where, according to the Report of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Farid Zarif, the Serbs protested because of the attempts by internally displaced Albanians to build houses in that part of northern Kosovska Mitrovica.

“The truth of the matter, though, is the persistence of Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija to alter the ethnic structure of Brdjani through land grab and building without a permit,” the minister said and added that local Serbs protested only after they found out that Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija were planning to build 172 apartments in that locality for the veterans of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army who had never lived there prior to 1999.

Mrkić proposed that Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Farid Zarif should draw an exact list of Kosovo and Metohija Albanians who lived in Brdjani prior to June 1999 and present it with the next Report.

“Building confidence in Kosovo institutions among minority communities is not helped by the signing of the military agreement with Albania,” Mrkić said and noted that the exchange of military personnel, provided for by the agreement, would add to the anxiety of minority communities.

“It should be borne in mind that, at least in theory, the agreement provides for the possibility that full military force be deployed as the Republic of Albania does possess heavy weapons, whereas, at least formally, the so-called Kosovo Security Forces do not,” Mrkić said.

“We do not expect that Priština will use this agreement with Albania for military actions in the field, but we have to highlight the consequence: the intimidation of minority communities,” the Serbian minister said and added that likewise, nobody believed the pogrom of Serbs was possible before it happened in 2004 in the presence of the international community or that, midway through negotiations, a unilateral move, "such as the dispatch of Priština's special force to northern Kosovo and Metohija in the summer of 2011, was possible."

“If we want to solidify the trust that we only have begun to build, we now need much more than assumptions; we need guarantees that force will not be used,” Mrkić underscored.

Mrkić proposed that the United Nations secretary-general requests his Special Representative Farid Zarif to prepare, for the next Report to the UN Security Council (UNSC), an exhaustive review of the situation in the areas south of the Ibar river in Kosovo and Metohija populated by Serbs, Gorani and other non-Albanians.

Speaking at UNSC session in New York, Mrkić said that the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, both in the north of the Serbian province and south of the Ibar, still face a lot of problems.

“The property rights of Serbs are violated throughout Kosovo and Metohija, in particular by indiscriminate sales of companies in Serb communities to Albanian businessmen through the Kosovo Privatization Agency,” Mrkić said.

He recalled in this connection the position maintained within the United Nations that the Kosovo Privatization Agency is not a legal successor of the Kosovo Trust Agency since it has not been established under a law in force in Kosovo and Metohija in accordance with Resolution 1244 and continues to exist contrary to the position of UNMIK taken after the EU withheld support funds in June 2008.

Mrkić urged for re-examining the decision on funding the Kosovo Privatization Agency, as it has abused its powers in the interest of the majority Albanian community on a number of occasions.

According to relevant UNHCR data, there still remain 210,148 internally displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija living in Serbia today and over 70 percent of them are Serbs, Mrkić said.

Mrkić said that the current UN report about the situation in Kosovo and Metohija said that the number of incidents against minority communities has been reduced compared to the preceding period, but remains silent on the number of discovered and tried perpetrators and the number of cases, solved and unsolved.

“No mention is made of the measures taken by the authorities, either by police, prosecutors or courts,” he said, adding that “the practice of not punishing the perpetrators of violence against Serbs is thus continued.”

“We still do not know who killed 14 reapers at Staro Gracko way back in 1999 following the arrival of the international presences or who shot the Serbian children as they played on the river at Goraždevac in 2003… The pogrom of March 2004 which resulted in 19 dead and 4,000 displaced has not initiated a single court proceeding yet, either,” said the Serbian foreign minister.

None of these cases has been solved so far, which leads us to believe that the "culture of impunity" remains in Kosovo and Metohija, he added.

Mrkić stressed that minority communities surely do not feel safe in an environment like this.

“Were the environment at least a bit different, we would witness more returns and our liaison officer who assumed duty in June would not be the 118th Serb in Priština, the city that numbered 40,000 of them not so long ago,” the Serbian minister said.

There have been only 302 Serb returnees to Kosovo and Metohija in 2012, against 464 in 2011, which testifies to a continued decrease in the already small number of returnees, he added.

Mrkić pointed out that Priština resorts to arrests under secret indictments based on unfounded charges for war crimes that are arbitrarily pressed against Serbs as one of the ways to intimidate the Serb population in Kosovo and Metohija.

He took the opportunity to call on EULEX, which is competent to establish responsibilities for war crimes, to make the list of indictments public to calm the tensions in the Serb community, whose members live in fear of unjust arrests.

Mrkić reiterated the importance of full and effective investigation of the allegations about kidnapping and killing people during and after the armed conflict in Kosovo for the purpose of organ trafficking.

“Serbia is ready to continue its cooperation with the EULEX investigation team in order to establish the truth and to achieve justice for the victims. We are hopeful that the investigation will yield results soon,” he said.

Mrkić condemned all attempts to “re-name the cultural and historical heritage of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija as "the Kosovo heritage", i.e. to 'Kosovize' it.”

“These attempts are tantamount to attempts to destroy the evidence of the centuries-long existence and survival of Serbs in this area, all for the purpose of promoting the so-called independence of Kosovo,” he said.

In conclusion, Mrkić said that the political will of Priština expressed only in words is not enough as concrete results are needed to build a society which offers equal rights and protection to all its members.

Mrkić said that great efforts and concrete steps are needed to provide physical safety and property security to minority communities, adding that the UN report stated that they are to be made by Priština and that the process will evolve much easier and faster with UNMIK's assistance.

“Aware of the opportunity presented to it, the Republic of Serbia expects continued assistance from the international community, the United Nations, in particular, on the road of confidence-building, which we believe is the only sound foundation to bring about normal life for all in Kosovo and Metohija,” Mrkić said.

"No role"

Kosovo Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday to discuss a transformation of UNMIK into a UN political office, the biggest role of which would lie in supporting Kosovo on its path to the membership in the global organisation.

Hoxhaj called on the UNSC to implement tangible measures so that Kosovo could claim its place in the family of free democratic countries.

There is no doubt UNMIK had an active role in the stabilisation of Kosovo in the period from 1999 to 2007 and now it is important to admit that it no longer has any role in Kosovo, Hoxhaj said.

He underscored that it is high time for the UN to discuss removing Kosovo from its agenda and adopt a new resolution that would recognise the progress made so far.

Hoxhaj also called on the local population to take part in the local elections in Kosovo which should be staged on November 3, and noted that Belgrade has the crucial role in encouragement of the local population to go to elections.

The Kosovo minister noted that progress was made in the previous quarter of the year in terms of closing Serbia's police offices in northern Kosovo municipalities, but he also said that no progress has been made in the judiciary sector.

In terms of the fate of the missing persons, Hoxhaj said that joint efforts need to be invested and that Belgrade and the international community need to cooperate so as to find a solution to the issue.