Serbian Official: Kosovo Is Not a State
Three years on, the status of Kosovo remains unresolved and it cannot be stable until Serbia accepts it, said the state secretary of Serbia's Ministry for Kosovo, Oliver Ivanovic,
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Friday, February 18, 2011
"Kosovo's Albanians live in a virtual world and neglect a very important element, and that is that they continue to create and incite political instability in Kosovo, and in the region," Ivanovic was quoted as saying.
"(Ethnic) Albanians cannot strengthen their institutions and cannot deal with crime and corruption precisely because they are continuously occupying their virtual world of proving their independence," the Ministry for Kosovo official said.
Commenting on Belgrade's work and results regarding the issue over the past three years, Ivanovic said "it was true success" that insistence on negotiations produced results.
"Political stability cannot be created in any other way except through negotiations that would produce answers to practical issues," said he.
Another success of the Serbian policy, according to Ivanovic, was to stem the tide of recognitions of Kosovo.
"One of the goals was to bring them to a halt, after the wave of recognitions that came at the very beginning, mostly under pressure from the United States," he noted.
"Many (countries) are probably thinking they made a mistake, which surely won't lead to their withdrawal of recognitions, but in any case halting further recognitions is something that gives us a chance to think with cool heads and look for a solution," he told the radio station.
Ivanovic said that Serbs "still feel extremely threatened", and assessed that upcoming talks between Belgrade and Pristina should yield some solutions that will improve daily life.
Meanwhile, Marko Jaksic, the president of the Assembly of the Community of Kosovo Municipalities, in the north, said that the past three years have shown that Kosovo cannot survive as an independent state.
"We see today that Kosovo cannot survive as an independent country, it is isolated island that has no access anywhere, and for that reason the EU is insisting on talks. This means they care about improving the life of the Albanians, and not the Serbs, because if they cared about the Serbs, they would at least bring back the 200,000 displaced persons," Jaksic told.
