President, Serbs from north Kosovo meet

Source: Tanjug

BELGRADE -- Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić on Thursday in Belgrade met with representatives of Serb municipalities from northern Kosovo.

The four mayors attend the meeting on Thursday (Tanjug)

He told them that the government and all other state institutions "must do everything in order to protect the security and rights of Serbian citizens in Kosovo and Metohija".
However, Nikolić did not hand over the documents related to the Belgrade-Priština dialogue, started in March 2011 under EU mediation, as he had previously announced.

Instead, said reports, he only "showed the documents to Serb representatives".

The president stressed during the meeting today that the problem of the province must be resolved through peaceful and democratic means.

The presidential press service said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that Nikolić stated that a consensus of all relevant political factors in Serbia must be achieved when it comes to resolving the problem of Kosovo.

He also undertook the obligation to organize talks as soon as possible in order to achieve that consensus.

The president further called on the citizens in the southern Serbian province not to respond to provocations and to refrain from violent actions directed toward members of civilians and military missions present there.

The meeting in Belgrade was attended by mayors of the municipalities of Kosovska Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Zvečan and Leposavić - Krstimir Pantić, Dragiša Milović, Slaviša Ristić and Branko Ninić, as well as the head of the Kosovska Mitrovica District, Radenko Nedeljković.

Ahead of the meeting, reporters saw that SNS party leader Aleksandar Vučić also entered the presidency building, but it remains unclear if he participated.

The Serb representatives traveled to Belgrade to inform the president about the problems Serbs face in the southern province, focusing especially on recent incidents.

The mayors are officials from the area north of the Ibar River - where Serbs are the majority. President Nikolić also announced that he would in the coming days meet with representatives of Serbs who reside south of the Ibar - where they live in isolated enclaves.

"Serbs will to receive documents"

After the meeting today, Zvečan Mayor Dragiša Milović told reporters that President Tomislav Nikolić will soon give the representatives of Serbs from northern Kosovo documents about the negotiations between Belgrade and Priština in order to familiarize them with the contents.

"We will get all the documents from Brussels very quickly, but we already got some insight from the OSCE and UNMIK. These are the documents that the office of the president has yet to study," Milović stated.

Asked whether the documents signed in Brussels contain something about which the Serbian public was not informed, Milović answered affirmatively.

Asked if Serbs will continue to block the movement of EULEX and if this was discussed in the meeting with the president of Serbia, Milović said that it was not a topic of conversation, and that EULEX members will be able to move freely when they prove to be status-neutral, as is the case of KFOR.

"We call on Kosovo Serbs not to fall for provocations in order to avoid being accused," Milović said.

During the previous 13 years, Priština - i.e., the ethnic Albanian authorities - had the opportunity to offer an olive branch "but I have never seen that", Milović said.

"Our citizens are frightened and we expect a u-turn, as well as for Serbs in Kosovo to participate in the negotiations with Priština soon, and Nikolić agreed," Milović noted.

According to Milović, EULEX this morning took off license plates that were not labeled "RKS, or KS" and called on the head of the negotiating team in dialogue with Pristina Borislav Stefanović "to tell the truth" on the subject of license plates.