January 10, 2012
440 Lexime
Belgrade has rebuffed statements from Pristina that the Serbian president and other officials could be banned from Kosovo.
Belgrade, SERBIA – Tuesday, January 10, 2012 | by Gordana Andric
Serbian officials say they will continue to inform the EU rule of law mission, EULEX, and the UN mission, UNMIK, about their plans to enter Kosovo, but will not ask Pristina for permission.
“The government is communicating with representatives of international missions. Several days before each trip we inform them of our plans and then they send us their response. The response mainly regards security measures that will be taken,” Milivoje Mihajlovic, the head of Serbia’s government information bureau, told Balkan Insight.
Mihajlovic’s statement came a day after Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister, Hajredin Kuqi, said that Serbian President Boris Tadic will no longer be allowed to enter Kosovo.
Boris Tadic and Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, both spent the Serbian Orthodox Christmas at a monastery in Kosovo. While their visit was secured by Kosovo and international police, their convoys were met with protests by ethnic Albanians, who threw stones at their cars.
Kuqi said that Tadic had “misused a private visit” to give “political statements” and by doing so broke the deal that his visit would be a religious visit, not political.
Mihajlovic called Kuqi’s statement an “attempt to justify the extremism and violence in Kosovo that followed Tadic’s visit.”
Both Mihajlovic and Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, said Pristina does not have a mechanism to prevent Serbian officials from visiting Kosovo.
