"Hands off Pristina University," Kosovo Office chief warns

"Hands off Pristina University," Kosovo Office chief warns

Simic also pointed out that from the legal point of view, without the votes of the Serb member of the Kosovo Assembly, that law will not pass.

Earlier, Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric said that the Pristina University with the seat in Kosovska Mitrovica has been, and will continue to be a part of the Serbian education system.

Djuric's message to Kosovo institutions is that the University of Pristina is the pillar of the Serb survival in Kosovo.

"That's why I say to the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government in Pristina: Hands off from our university, because it is not to be grabbed, instead, it it to acquire knowledge at!"

"The university, which has had temporary headquarters in Kosovska Mitrovica (since the end of the 1999 war in Kosovo), is a part of the European University Association, and with close to 8,000 active students has been and remains the pillar of the Serb survival in Kosovo and Metohija," Djuric said in a statement.

Domestic media reported earlier that the authorities in Pristina are planning to shut down the Serbian education system in Kosovo by adopting new laws and, as reported, "grab" the University of Pristina with the temporary seat in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, now operating under Serbian laws.

Djuric said that any attack on the current status of that university was an attack on the elementary rights of the Serb people and an act of aggressive arbitrariness that aims to make it difficult for Serbs to survive in Kosovo.

"I will remind you that the University of Pristina was established as a branch of the University of Belgrade, and is today the only higher education institution teaching in Serbian in Kosovo," Djuric said.