Vucic: Chances of so-called Kosovo joining CoE remain very high

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Monday the chances of the so-called Kosovo becoming a Council of Europe (CoE) member remained very high but that Serbia was doing everything in its power to prevent that from happening.

"We are proud of that because, that way, we respect European rules," he said.

"Because we respect the European conditions and everything we have agreed with the Europeans and Americans, unlike them. Because the first sequence in implementing any agreements was the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities. But then, after some strange visits to Athens and strange discussions, a change of those conditions happened," Vucic said in a public address at the Presidency of Serbia.

He said that, after that, rapporteur Dora Bakoyannis of Greece and the proposers of a report in favour of the so-called Kosovo's CoE membership had stopped mentioning putting an end to land expropriations, to setting up so-called police and military stations in the north of Kosovo-Metohija and to usurpations of Serb-owned private property, and noted that no one was mentioning the Community of Serb Municipalities any more.

We have understood that the so-called Kosovo's CoE admission and a resolution on Srebrenica are aimed at leading to a war reparations lawsuit against Serbia and a review of the International Criminal Court case against Serbia, Vucic also said.

I have spoken with representatives of 111 UN member states and I will continue to do that every day because I know what the intent of the proposers of the resolution is, Vucic said, noting that a vote on the draft resolution would be nowhere near unanimous as it would have to be adopted by outvoting those against it.

For the first time in the history of the UN General Assembly, a decision is to be made about an act on which there is no consent among a country's constitutive peoples, Vucic said.

"My question is: Why are the Americans allowing such a brutal violation of the Dayton Agreement?" he also said.