Political representatives of Kosovo-Metohija Serbs meet with Escobar

PRISTINA - US special Western Balkans envoy Gabriel Escobar met in Pristina with leaders of Serb political parties in Kosovo-Metohija, who voiced concern over decisions by the Pristina authorities and called for an urgent reaction by the international community.

Srpska lista representatives, led by party leader Zlatan Elek, met with Escobar and US Ambassador to Pristina Jeffrey Hovenier, and pointed to a need for an urgent and determined reaction to prevent an exodus of Serbs, whose fundamental human rights are being jeopardised by Pristina institutions, Srpska lista said in a statement.

"A decision to ban the dinar and the termination of payment transactions 25 years after the conflict, militarisation of Serb-majority municipalities, a ban on trade with central Serbia, getting illegitimate mayors into municipal buildings in the north as well as institutional persecution of Serbs and seizure of property owned by our citizens and jeopardising the functioning and the survival of the Serbian Orthodox Church in this territory require a strong, energetic and urgent reaction by the democratic world to prevent the Serbs from being driven out of their ancestral homes," the Srpska lista representatives warned.

Escobar also met with Branimir Stojanovic and Milija Bisevac from the Serbian People's Movement, Aleksandar Arsenijevic from Serbian Democracy and Aleksandar Jablanovic from the Kosovo Serb Party, who voiced concern for the survival of Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija.

"We talked about all the things that are troubling us - from these latest decisions to all those that were made before and make our life complicated. We talked about life and about how difficult it is, the extent to which people are moving out. We pointed out that things must change more quickly, above all, towards calming the situation and overcoming harmful decisions and making others that would either annul or abolish the one on the dinar," Radio KiM quoted Stojanovic as saying after the meeting.

He noted that the scale on which the Serbs were moving out was "very concerning" and that "all the high politics makes no sense" if a large number of people left.