Petkovic receives Roquefeuil

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Petar Petkovic met with Brice Roquefeuil, chief of the French foreign ministry's directorate for continental Europe, in Belgrade on Friday, noting that the arrest of the Office's Assistant Director Igor Popovic was another in a series of escalatory moves by Pristina.

On a daily basis, through unilateral and unlawful moves, Pristina provokes new crises and tensions in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija targeting the Serb population, Petkovic said.

Pristina is undermining and annulling all achievements of the Brussels dialogue and destroying possibilities of normalisation of its relations with Belgrade, the Office for Kosovo-Metohija said in a statement.

"Since the very beginning, Belgrade has had no dependable or credible dialogue partner in Pristina because the agreements reached are violated or not implemented, which is the case with the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities, for which our people have been waiting for 12 years. Instead of efforts in that direction and compliance with the 2013 Brussels Agreement, Pristina has arrested the assistant director of the Office for Kosovo-Metohija, Igor Popovic, who, as a jurist, has himself taken part in various stages of the dialogue. It is an attack not only on the human rights of the Serbs, but also on the very essence of dialogue," Petkovic noted.

He expressed gratitude for a statement by the French foreign ministry in which it urged Popovic's immediate release, as well as for France's constructive role with the aim of preserving peace and stability in the Western Balkans, also reflected in a very close relationship between the two countries and their presidents, Aleksandar Vucic and Emmanuel Macron.

By terrorising the Serbs, Albin Kurti is trying to disguise the political crisis in Pristina, Petkovic explained.

"Unilateral moves, institutional violence, expulsions of Serbs and physical terror against our people are the backbone of Albin Kurti's policy in Kosovo-Metohija, and sparking a crisis in the north of Kosovo-Metohija is aimed exclusively at disguising the political crisis Kurti has in Pristina, which is getting more intense with the approaching October 12 local elections," Petkovic concluded.