“K. Serbs want guarantees they will be Serbian citizens”
SOURCE: TANJUG
JAGODINA -- Ex-Ministry for Kosovo State Secretary Oliver Ivanović says Kosovo Serbs want guarantees from the government that they will be Serbian citizens.

 

Oliver Ivanović (B92, file)
“They request guarantees that they will have political security and economic perspective and only our government in Belgrade can guarantee that,” he stressed.

“If our government does not guarantee that, nobody else can give good enough guarantees because Serbs in Kosovo trust neither Priština nor Brussels,” Ivanović told Jagodina-based Palma Plus TV.

He stressed that the “government will not change the agreement because it works and speaks on behalf of seven million citizens of this country, regardless of how politically important we (Kosovo Serbs) are, the government simply will not allow us to change something it initialed, agreed on and tested in parliament”.

“By withdrawing the agreement, the government would lose credibility in the international and domestic public and such government would be of no use to us, Serbs in Kosovo would lose a lot,” Ivanović pointed out.

According to him, the Serb people in Kosovo would be put at ease if they had guarantees that they would have Serbian citizenship, that they would not have to use Kosovo’s identity documents and that the “Republic of Kosovo” stamp would not be put on their documents.

“Everything is in the hands of our government that has so far made the same mistakes as the previous one I was a member of, maybe even the one before, and that is a lack of communication with Serbs who live in Kosovo and Metohija, in this case especially with Serbs who live in the north,” Ivanović explained.

He believes that the lack of real information makes room for disinformation and that “there will always be people who will use this disinformation for their personal or party interests and it will seem like a campaign against the government”.