UNESCO says cultural heritage in Kosovo is Serbian
Serbian President Boris Tadic stated that UNESCO General Director Koiciro Macura supports Belgrade's stance that nobody has the right to usurp the Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Friday, June 05, 2009
During the break at the summit of heads of the Balkan states in Cetinje, Tadic specified that Macura convinced him that at the next UNESCO session in Seville, it will be defined that the Orthodox cultural heritage in Kosovo is the heritage of the Serbian people.
"Serbia will always insist on it which is why I underlined in talks that the so-called state of Kosovo exists in Pristina's plans for 13-14 months, while the cultural heritage of the Serbian people in Kosovo has been existing for centuries", said Tadic.
He pointed that the Serbian state existed in Kosovo even at the time when its cultural heritage was generated in that region and which became part of the global cultural heritage. According to Tadic, the Serbian cultural heritage should have positive impact on all that want to accept it, but that nobody has the right to usurp it as if its their property.
Earlier, speaking at the a summit on diversity and cultural heritage, Serbian President Boris Tadic lashed out against what he said was Kosovo's attempt to "doctor" history, calling it a dangerous game with dangerous consequences.
Tadic updated the participants on the status of the reconstruction of Serbian heritage sites in Kosovo, such as important and treasured historic and religious monuments. He thanked the Serbian Orthodox Church, UNESCO and the Council of Europe for making the reconstruction possible.Close to the end of his speech he began to fiercely condemn Pristina's attempt to "tailor" history to its needs and for misusing Serbian heritage in Kosovo as a pawn in a "dangerous game" of identity creation.
"The Pristina authorities attempted to abuse Serb religious sites in Kosovo in a dangerous game of identity creation. Time and again, publications appear with outrageous claims that Serbian medieval Orthodox heritage is actually Albanian," Tadic claimed.
"We've seen a lot of steps backwards in this process over the last decade. One of these have been the attempts of the Kosovo Albanian authorities to cut the very foundations of Serbian heritage from the remains of buildings ...," said Tadic.
