Vucic: Kurti systematically destroying Serb population in Kosovo-Metohija

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday evening Pristina's PM Albin Kurti was systematically destroying the Serb population in Kosovo-Metohija, and added that Serbs there were "going through hell".

"You cannot justify the killing of a policeman, regardless of the fact that, under the law (the Brussels Agreement), he had nothing to do in the north (of Kosovo-Metohija). There is no justification for that. The relevant authorities must react to that. But those people had their backs against the wall. Kurti has been and is destroying the Serb population systematically. He hates the Serbs," Vucic told the RTS in an interview.

He said he did not know what the idea of a group of Serbs who had clashed with the so-called Kosovo Police had been, but noted that he was certain they had wanted to protect their homes and prepare to defend from future attacks.

"For a year, I have had information that people have been preparing to offer resistance. They make no secret of that. They were very disappointed when I pleaded with them to remove barricades. They were against it and they held that against me. I think I saved hundreds of Serb lives that way," Vucic said.

He said Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija lived a different life.

"Their wives and their children are harassed on a daily basis, their children are fired at," Vucic said, adding that Kosovo-Metohija Serbs were "going through hell."

He called on them to attain everything that belonged to them in a peaceful manner and to peacefully request a withdrawal of Kurti's police from the north of Kosovo-Metohija.

"Let's try to do everything in a peaceful way and let's make having to defend the lives our people our last option. Peace is our interest and that is my plea to them," Vucic said.

He said one of the trucks the group of Serbs had used to block a road before last weekend's clashes in Banjska had been purchased in Croatia and the other from a "Serb or ethnic Albanian" in Medvedja, central Serbia.

He said that, as president of Serbia, he did not see the three Serbs killed in the clashes as terrorists and noted that all of them had been family men.

He said Belgrade would request that Pristina provide drone footage of the killing of the policeman and noted that it had not been planned.

He said the policeman had been wounded by explosives placed to make removing the barricades more difficult and that gunfire had begun only after the blast.

"We will do our job in line with the laws of the Republic of Serbia. We will investigate everything that happened - today we know much more. That means we will be acting like a rule-of-law state," he said.