Kosovo and Serbia exchange accusations at the Security Council meeting

2024-10-30 19:18:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The United Nations Security Council held its regular meeting on Kosovo on Wednesday. In this meeting, Kosovo was represented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Donika Gërvalla, while Serbia was represented by its Foreign Minister, Marko Gjuri?.

The meeting comes at a time when the dialogue process, facilitated by the European Union, has stalled with deep disagreements between the parties and criticism from Washington and Brussels that Serbia and Kosovo are violating the obligations from the agreements and have made continuous calls to the two countries to abandon unilateral actions and engage in dialogue.

The confrontation between Kosovo and Serbia before the Security Council was characterized by mutual accusations and completely different interpretations of developments in Kosovo.

Serbia's foreign minister, Marko Djuric, said that the situation in Kosovo over the past two years has worsened due to the unilateral actions of the Kosovo government, which he accused of creating a climate of fear and lack of stability. He accused the authorities in Pristina of refusing to respect the Brussels agreement and not creating the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, saying that such actions by Kosovo are in direct opposition to the Security Council and the international community.

"Since Prime Minister Kurti's return to power, his government has systematically increased efforts aimed at isolating and excluding the Serbian community. Imagine if your currency was suddenly banned, pensions were taken away and social support for Kosovo Serbs was cut off. Here we are today. This is not a hypothetical situation. This is the reality that Serbs face today in Kosovo", Minister Gjuri? declared.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Minister of Kosovo, Donika Gërvalla, rejected the accusations of the Serbian minister as "crazy lies" calling on the members of the Council not to believe them.

She defended the decisions of the Government of Kosovo, saying that no other country would accept that the extralegal institutions of another country issue personal documents, while she accused Serbia of continuous violations of agreements mediated by the European Union.

She said that Serbia continues to protect the participants of the armed attack in Banjska and accused the Serbian government of playing the role of Russia's ally in the region.

"The problem for Vucic's people is not the Association. They have a problem with our very existence. For them, the Association is not a tool to ease the lives of citizens, it is just another attempt to separate a part of the territory of our state, as Putin has done with Ukraine. They want nothing less than the disappearance of the Republic of Kosovo", Minister Gërvalla declared.

The American representative, Ambassador Robert Wood, meanwhile called on the Security Council to reconsider the possibility of closing the UN mission in Kosovo, which he said is overdue.

The American representative requested that these meetings of the Security Council be reduced to a single annual meeting that would take place behind closed doors.

The United States also said Serbia "has not made significant progress" in holding accountable the perpetrators of the Serbian paramilitary attack in Banjska last year, including Milan Radojcic, and urged Serbian authorities to hold them accountable.

The United States also expressed concern "about the uncoordinated actions" of the Kosovo government that are contrary to its commitment to the dialogue process.

Ambassador Wood said that the dialogue process remains the only way to advance the European integration of both countries and emphasized the commitment of the United States to escalate the situation in the north, to prevent escalations on both sides and to require the parties to implement the agreements, including creation of the Association.

The ultimate goal of the United States remains mutual recognition between Kosovo and Serbia, the American official said.

Meanwhile, the Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya Russia accused the Kosovo authorities of this escalation due to the desire of Pristina, as he said, to put under complete control the northern part inhabited by Serbs in addition to the support of their western allies, which according to the Russian representative escalated tensions in Kosovo./VOA