Ragus: MEPs did not want to discuss rights of Kosovo-Metohija Serbs

BELGRADE - Serbian Deputy Parliament Speaker Marina Ragus said on Friday a delegation of European Parliament (EP) members that had visited the Serbian parliament earlier in the day had not wanted to discuss the human and civil rights of Kosovo-Metohija Serbs and the daily terror against them at the hands of the Albin Kurti regime in Pristina.

"I regret that we did not speak about all the Serbs who have been shot, children who have been shot just because they went out to get a Yule log, about sexual threats to all women living in the territory of Kosovo-Metohija. They (the MEPs) did not want to hear that, and they ended the meeting. We had material about every single one of the Kosovo-Metohija Serbs who are being terrorised by Kurti on a daily basis in a horrible manner," Ragus told reporters at a press conference in the parliament building, noting that Kurti was aiming to "ethnically cleanse the territory of Kosovo-Metohija of the Serbs."

"We also never heard that the Serbs have been ethnically cleansed from the territory of the Republic of Serb Krajina," Ragus noted.

After MPs of Serbia's ruling coalition waited for it for half an hour, the delegation of MEPs cut short the meeting - which was to last at least 40 minutes - with the excuse that they had other meetings to attend, Ragus said, noting that the MEPs had previously held two meetings with opposition representatives.

She said cutting short the meeting was an unprecedented sign of disrespect and that the EP rapporteur for Serbia, Croatian MEP Tonino Picula, was a bad choice for the position and should be replaced due to his unobjectivity.

Ragus said that, at the beginning of the meeting, Serbian MPs had protested the fact that the rapporteur for Serbia was "a man who celebrates Croatia's military operation Storm and poses for photos in a uniform of the (paramilitary formation) Black Mambas.

She added that the MEPs had also not condemned the genocide against Serbs committed in Jasenovac, a WWII death camp in the then Independent State of Croatia.