RS leader weighs in on Kosovo issues

Source: Tanjug

BANJA LUKA -- The Serb community in Kosovo "must not be lost" - this is the case "because it preserves the identity and heritage that Serbs have there", says Milorad Dodik.

(Tanjug, file)

"In this regard, you will always have my support and that of the Serb Republic," the president of the Serb entity in Bosnia, RS, told leaders of Serb municipalities and other representatives from Kosovo and Metohija.
"We will always be willing to talk and to concretely demonstrate and highlight the opportunities of that political struggle. Our experience in a similar environment is certainly great."

Dodik said the RS intended to open its cultural center in Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo.

He added that the international community, by insisting on solutions that do not envisage the protection of the Serb community and the Serbian state in that area, continues to humiliate Serbs in Kosovo.

The RS president said that the international community, using its methods that are well known in the RS, performed integration of Kosovo "step by step, against the will of Serbia and the entire Serb people, especially the legitimate representatives of the Serbs living in Kosovo and Metohija."

Dodik was also quoted as saying that the international community was "unfair to Serbs as a whole", and compared the situation in Kosovo to the Brčko District in Bosnia.

"The number of Serbs in Kosovo is greater than the entire population of the Brčko District. Yet the international community has given Brčko the status of a district and executive and legislative powers. But, since this is about Serbs in the case of Kosovo, then they (international community) are restrictive," said the president.

Dodik added that this spoke about double standards and unfairness of international factors on this issue. He expressed his admiration for the people who led the fight for the political status of the Serb community and the Serb municipalities in Kosovo under "difficult circumstances".