Vucic's conditions for Kosovo, Osmani: Do not take the Serbian president's demands seriously

The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, has called for the demands of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, not to be taken seriously as, as she said, he does not really want the return of Serbs to the institutions of Kosovo, but only wants to withdraw it the attention of the West.

"When Vučić talks about reviewing them [Serbs in institutions], he presents them only as words and rhetoric to divert the attention of the democratic world from what is really happening - which are his efforts, his government, his army of him, in the continuous training of paramilitary forces, which only aim at violence", said Osmani during an event in Pristina.

Last week, Vucic called for the reintegration of Serbs from the north into the institutions of Kosovo, demanding, among other things, the announcement of new local elections in the north, the return of Serbs to the Kosovo Police and the judiciary, as well as the withdrawal of special units. of the Kosovo Police from the northern region.

He also announced on September 14 that he has signed an agreement to return to regular military service for 75 days.

Osmani, during the statement to the media, repeated that he does not believe that these are sincere requests of Vucic, but added that the institutions of Kosovo themselves must work "so that all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity, are equal".

"This [distrust of Vucic's statements] does not mean that we as Kosovo institutions do not work closely with all our citizens of Serbian nationality, so that, in accordance with legal procedures, they are present in all institutions of Kosovo", Osmani added.

Hundreds of members of the Serbian community in the north resigned from Kosovo's institutions, including municipalities, police, courts and the prosecutor's office, in November 2022.

This followed their indignation with a decision by the Government of Kosovo to replace Serbian car plates with Kosovo plates.

From that time, the mayors of North Mitrovica municipalities, Zveçan, Zubin Potok and Leposaviq, were replaced by Albanian leaders, after the Serb majority community in the area boycotted the elections.

The Serbian employees did not return to the courts, the prosecutor's office and the police.

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, had called these demands "non-peaceful" and part of an "aggressive campaign for new conflicts".

"His demands, his measures, are made out of desperation and represent irrationality and are not peaceful at all, but rather part of the aggressive campaign for new conflicts that undoubtedly have no place even in Kosovo", Kurti said in his comment first for Vucic's calls, which the European Union welcomed as a positive move. /REL