Petkovic receives EU's Giaufret

BELGRADE - The head of the Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija Petar Petkovic met on Tuesday in Belgrade with Deputy Managing Director for Western Europe at the European External Action Service Emanuele Giaufret, to whom he conveyed that implementation of Pristina's so-called laws on foreigners and vehicles would have unforeseeable consequences for Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija.

Petkovic also informed Giaufret that, evidently acting on orders from Pristina's PM Albin Kurti, unidentified people in civilian clothes had entered the building of the Kosovska Mitrovica University Rectorate earlier in the day and made an impermissible demand that the Faculty of Technical Sciences move out of its premises in Kosovska Mitrovica in 30 days or start paying unfounded rent, the Office for Kosovo-Metohija said in a statement.

That way, Pristina is directly seeking an unacceptable clampdown on the Serbian university in Kosovska Mitrovica, evidently increasing the pressure on Serbian educational institutions ahead of the implementation of so-called measures that are nothing but the latest unilateral and unlawful moves by Pristina, Petkovic underscored, requesting an urgent reaction by the international community and the EU on that and other pressing issues that are important for the existence of Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija.

He noted that Belgrade and Kosovo-Metohija Serbs expected the EU and all other relevant actors to take with the utmost seriousness such moves and announcements by Pristina, which he said led to direct ethnic cleansing of Serbs from the territory.

"Serbian educational and health care institutions are the very core of the Community of Serb Municipalities, which has been agreed in Brussels as part of the First Brussels Agreement on normalisation of relations and is also guaranteed by the EU itself, and that is why it is necessary to start, as soon as possible, discussions on the Community's Statute, which also regulates these issues," Petkovic said.

He also conveyed the Kosovo-Metohija Serbs' enormous concern over implementation of Pristina's so-called measures as they affected nearly 10,000 Serbs living in the territory of Kosovo-Metohija, jeopardising their right to work, education, medical treatment, family life, freedom of movement.

"Belgrade remains open to discussions and expects stepped up engagement by the EU and Brussels on finding sustainable solutions that would take into account valid agreements and the rights of the Kosovo-Metohija Serbs," Petkovic concluded.