Minister: Phone services restored in Kosovo

30 April 2010 | 13:41 | Source: Beta

BELGRADE -- Telecommunications Minister Jasna Matić stated that mobile and landline phone services of Serbian providers had been restored in most of Kosovo. Matić pointed out that the Telecommunications and Information Society Ministry had asked UNMIK not to allow illegal actions of Kosovo Albanian authorities in Priština, which were incurring great damage to the citizens, and Telekom Srbija and Telenor operators. “According to UN Security Council’s Resolution 1244 the telecommunications authority has been put under the jurisdiction of UNMIK. They have so far regulated this field and we wrote to them so they would keep doing it,” she said. Matić noted that the situation in Kosovo was “relatively undefined” and that Priština was was using “every opportunity to strengthen its authority”. “It’s indisputable that Kosovo is a part of Serbia's territory, that Resolution 1244 is the only document which has legal weight, and Serbia will insist on it like we have done until now,” the minister said. Authorities in Priština last weekend disabled transmitters claiming that they did not have a license to operate in Kosovo, leaving some 100,000 Serbs in central and southern parts of the province without mobile phone service. Landline phone service has been disabled in some areas south of the Ibar River.