Dacic: We expect more determined international action over violations of Serbs' rights

BELGRADE - Serbian FM Ivica Dacic said on Monday Serbia expected greater attention and more determined action from the international community when it comes to the grave and enduring discrimination against Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija and violations of their fundamental human rights.

Addressing an online session of the High Level Segment of the 55th UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session, Dacic said Serbia was strongly committed to protection and promotion of human rights as one of the foundations of its society, committed to live in an atmosphere of tolerance and solidarity, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The world today abounds in examples of violations of fundamental human rights and, for Serbia, the decades-long tragedy of a part of its population in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija is an especially painful and unacceptable example, he said.

"For a quarter of a century now, our people in Kosovo-Metohija have been living in an atmosphere of fear of expulsion and violence. The Serbs have been systematically denied many fundamental human rights guaranteed by the UN Charter and other fundamental international documents, including the right to freedom of movement, freedom to express their will in elections, the right to property and economic development and even the right to live," Dacic said.

The survival of a people in its ancestral homes is in danger in Kosovo-Metohija, which is why no one should be wondering over the fact that a return of more than 200,000 people who have been internally displaced for over 25 years now is unthinkable in such conditions and that more than 14 per cent of the Serbs who remained have left the territory of Kosovo-Metohija in the past year alone, Dacic said.

"The latest in a series of continued unilateral moves by the provisional self-government institutions in Pristina is an illegal decision to abolish transactions in the Serbian currency, the dinar, in the territory of Kosovo-Metohija. Essentially, the goal of such moves is absolutely clear - a disappearance of the Serb population from the territory of Kosovo-Metohija," Dacic said, noting that the primary responsibility for overcoming the current tragic state of affairs and creating conditions for sustainable returns rested with the relevant UN bodies and key political factors in the international community.