President: Serbs in Kosovo under threat of genocide

SOURCE: TANJUG, GUARDIAN.CO.UK

LONDON -- President Tomislav Nikolić has told a British newspaper in an interview that Serbs in Kosovo are living under the threat of genocide.

 

Nikolić is seen in London over the weekend (Tanjug)

Any attempt to impose the Priština government's authority could lead to their exodus, he noted.

"What if the Serbs move out. Who will accept the results of such genocide? That is one of the definitions of genocide: when you expel 40,000 people, regardless of whether they are women, men, (civilians or) soldiers, and when you change the ethnic composition of the territory. That is genocide." 

Nikolić, who is currently in London, also told the Guardian newspaper in an interview that "there is a danger that Priština would be prepared to go that far", and added: 

The only armed force there, apart from the international community, is (ethnic) Albanian. I am convinced they wouldn't mind doing that immediately." 

According to Nikolić, "the only thing preventing such action was the presence of NATO troops". 

He was speaking about the northern, majority Serb part of Kosovo that does not recognize the authority of the Kosovo Albanian government in Priština, and rejects the ethnic Albanian unilateral declaration of independence made in early 2008. 

According to the report, he also "signaled that he would take a tougher stance" in the ongoing Belgrade-Priština talks, saying that so far, concessions were requred to be made only by Belgrade, and that now similar requirements should be put before Priština: 

"What compromise has been done by Priština up to now? None. All the talks have been on things Serbia will accept. Serbia hasn't set any conditions," he said. "It's not a compromise if Serbia is always backtracking step by step. It's not a compromise if Priština says its independence is recognized and that it will realize its independence on our territory." 

Nikolić "underlined an earlier declaration that he would never exercise power in Priština", writes the daily. He also called on Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga to admit she would never govern in northern Kosovska Mitrovica. 

Asked whether that implied the partition of Kosovo, he replied: "I don't know, because if you told me 20 years ago there would be no Yugoslavia, I wouldn't have believed you. If you told me Serbia and Montenegro would split, I would have also told you that was impossible. I would also have said that Germany would never reunite, but life brings us surprises. I can't run policy by imagining things." 

The Guardian also stressed that Nikolić used to be a prominent member of the Serb Radicals (SRS), a party led by Vojislav Šešelj, who is on trial in The Hague. 

"I have committed no crime. And I am not ashamed of anything I have done since 1990 to today… These so-called paramilitary units were in line with the then Constitution of Yugoslavia. In that time, I was aware that everybody must do everything he can to defend his people and country… All peoples from the former Yugoslav took part in the war. Some of them to gain states; the Serbs to save a state. But the Serbs did not manage to accomplish their task." 

According to the interview, the president "claimed the fact that the Serbs lost the war explained why there were more Serbs than other ethnicities facing charges at the war crimes tribunal, and not that it was Serbs under Slobodan Milošević who committed the majority of atrocities." 

He refused to confirm whether he would have handed over Bosnian Serb was crimes suspects Radovan Karadžić or Ratko Mladić as his predecessor Boris Tadić had done. 

Nikolć also "repeated his denial", writes the daily, "that the mass killings of Muslims from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995 constituted genocide". 

"I cannot go further than the Serbian parliament," he said, in reference to the parliament resolution adopted in 2010, which condemned the war crime. 

Nikolić was also quoted as saying that "his greatest challenge was to fill the estimated USD 3bn hole in the budget". He asked for international assistance and claimed his country's needs were small in comparison with the scale of the eurozone crisis, but warned creditors against making their help conditional on Serbia making concessions over Kosovo: 

"Maybe someone thought we were ready to make various concessions if we were poor. But we expect the international community and our friends to help us to recover the economy in line with their duties and obligations. We don't want be treated like country cousins."