Vucevic: Kurti directly responsible for genocidal policy towards Serbs

BELGRADE - Serbian Progressive Party leader Milos Vucevic, who is also the presidential adviser for regional affairs, said on Monday Albin Kurti was directly responsible for a genocidal policy towards Serbs, for spreading intolerance and for constant escalations of inter-ethnic tensions.

In a reaction to a statement in which Kurti said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic had made a "threatening" comment following Pristina's decision to place Igor Popovic, assistant director of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija, in one-month custody, Vucevic said Kurti continued an ethnic cleansing of Serbs.

"Albin Kurti, a sham PM of a sham state that is falling apart thanks to him, continues to spread lies and proceeds further with an ethnic cleansing of Serbs through unlawful arrests of Serbs, expulsions and bans on memorial services and on remembrance of Serb victims," Vucevic wrote in an Instagram post.

He noted that the conduct of the so-called Pristina authorities was impermissible and a part of Kurti's plan to eradicate everything that was Serbian in Kosovo-Metohija.

"And he is trying to disguise all those fascist intentions with false accusations against Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic while continuing to make illegal arrests and put the Serb community under pressure in other ways. Kurti is the one trying to destabilise the whole region! He demonstrates that with his every move. The false accusations against Belgrade are another attempt by Kurti to hide the truth about the ethnic cleansing he is carrying out," Vucevic noted.

Serbia urgently requests that the international community halt unlawful actions against the Serbs by Kurti's judges and take urgent measures to protect the rights of the Serb community in Kosovo-Metohija, Vucevic added.

Popovic was arrested at the Brnjak administrative crossing on Friday and placed in custody on Sunday.

Popovic, who is in charge of legal affairs at the Office, had visited Orahovac, Kosovo-Metohija, for a commemoration of the killing of 47 Serbs and Roma and the kidnappings of more than a hundred innocent people by the criminal "Kosovo Liberation Army" in July 1998.