Referendum in northern Kosovo to go ahead

Source: Tanjug

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Serbs in northern Kosovo will vote in a referendum scheduled for February 14-15 - "just as planned", Kosovska Mitrovica Mayor Krstimir Pantić has said.

Krstimir Pantić (Tanjug, file)

Following a meeting on Monday of heads of municipalities and party groups in local assemblies, Pantić said that while Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Goran Bogdanović had expressed the opinion of the Serbian government the week before that a referendum was not necessary at the moment, this "did not challenge the right of the local Serbs to hold it".
Pantić pointed out that the representatives of local self-governments had expressed readiness to meet with a government's representative who would explain to them why the referendum was considered to be detrimental to the state and national interests.

No senior official of the state has yet contacted them regarding the matter, and so the whips of the local assemblies decided there was no reason to postpone the referendum.

Following a Council of Europe Rapporteur Jelko Kacin's statement that the referendum would in no way put Serbia's bid for EU candidate status, the municipal councilors decided during the Monday morning consultations that there was no reason for a delay in holding the referendum, said Pantić.

Pantić claims that all of the four Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo are in favor of holding the referendum, singling out "minor disagreements in the municipality of Leposavić which were eventually overcome".

Leposavić is the only municipality in northern Kosovo with a mayor from the ranks of the Democratic Party (DS).

“All municipal representatives told Minister Bogdanović last week that if anybody managed to prove to us that the referendum is detrimental to state and national interests, we are ready to postpone it. Since nobody offered us such explanations, the referendum will be held as planned,” Pantić said.

Serb leaders in the north called the referendum in order to confirm that the local population rejects the authority of the Kosovo Albanian institutions in Priština.

Serbs are the majority north of the Ibar River, and they also reject the ethnic Albanian unilateral declaration of independence made four years ago.