Djuric: Another embarrassing step by Bakoyannis

BELGRADE - In an attempt to brazenly whitewash her complete disregard for the blatant transgressions of Albin Kurti's regime in front of the Greek and Serbian people and the broader European public, Council of Europe (CoE) rapporteur Dora Bakoyannis has taken a further embarrassing step, says Serbian Ambassador to the US Marko Djuric.

"The transgressions she is pretending not to see, despite her claimed 300 visits to the region, include not only formal obligations stemming from both the Brussels Agreement and the Ohrid talks but, more importantly, the basic human, political, and economic rights of Serbs in (the so-called) Kosovo*," Djuric wrote in a post on the social media network X on Wednesday.

"She now states that no other candidate for Council of Europe membership has ever been asked to fulfill as many criteria as Kurti's regime.

I would really like to know, if possible, what exactly those criteria based on which she now supports Kurti's ethnonationalist government's membership in the Council of Europe are," he added.

"Is it the 11-month total ban on Serbian goods entering Kosovo*? Is it the illegal ban on the use of the Serbian dinar, resulting in hospitals in Serb-majority areas lacking medicine and medical supplies, and doctors, nurses, and mothers not receiving salaries, child care, or pensions?

Are those criteria possibly the extrajudicial arrests (publicly mentioned a number of times by Josep Borrell and other EU and US officials), or is it the brutal oppression to which Kosovo Serbs are subjected every day?"

Djuric noted that supporting CoE membership for Kurti's government was a "shameful stain that cannot be justified."

"One which I am deeply convinced is not in the interest of either the Greek or the Serbian people," he added.

In an article for European Western Balkans, Bakoyannis has said no CoE membership candidate had been requested to carry out more reforms before a debate on admission to the organisation than the so-called Kosovo.