Form survey committee to discuss frauds in Kosovo

The Serbian parliament Committee on Kosovo decided on Wednesday to send a proposition to the parliament to set up a survey committee which would look into all illegal operations in the province since 2000 to date.

(KosovoCompromiseStuff) Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The proposition was filed by MP of the Democratic Party (DS) Borislav Stefanovic who said that the Committee for Kosovo-Metohija and the parliament need to prevent anyone's TV shows conducting the investigation instead of authorities.

This was his response to the remark of MP of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) Slobodan Samardzic who said that the initiative on the constitution of the survey committee left an impression in the public that this is a reaction to the negative campaign conducted by Television in its show Insider.

A total of 12 committee members voted in favour of the establishment of the survey committee, while three MPs were against it, from the lines of DSS and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Principles of talks not to be hidden from public

Marko Djuric, Serbian president's advisor, stated Tuesday that the Kosovo platform is at the moment labeled state secret, but added that no principle of the Belgrade-Pristina talks will be hidden from the public eye.

"We will not give up on the idea that the broadest public and the parliament should discuss and decide on the key parameters and principles of the talks," Djuric said at a session of the Serbian parliament's Committee for Kosovo.

"The meetings took place in Brussels between the Serbian prime minister (Ivica Dacic) and EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and a representative of the interim institutions (Hasim Taci) with a view to determining the basic parameters of the future talks, but not the content of our negotiating position," he said.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic is the strongest defender of the national and state interests, and no concession will be made to the damage of the state sovereignty, he said.

Djuric said that that this process will also include representatives of Serbs in Kosovo.

North Kosovo Serbs: We want to be part of Serbia

The meeting of the Serbian parliament's Committee on Kosovo held a four-hour discussion Tuesday about agreements that the previous government reached in the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina.

Representatives of the Serbs from northern Kosovo stressed during the debate that they "do not want to be a barrier to a creation of a Greater Albania, but rather want to remain part of the Republic of Serbia."

They said that they wanted to cooperate with the new government and expected to be told at least about the basic points of the new government's policy, if not what the government's negotiating platform was based on, which was a state secret at present.

Head of the Zvecan municipality Dragisa Milovic said that the situation in the whole of the southern Serbian province's territory was now more difficult than before and it was obvious that the Serbs in the region were under tremendous pressure, as the topic of the status of the province had turned very hot.