“Serbia is facing a severe ultimatum over Kosovo”

B92

"When it comes to Kosovo, Serbia is faced with a severe and serious ultimatum because it is asked to renounce the property of Telekom Serbia in the province."
Source: Tanjug Wednesday, October 5, 2016 | 15:49

Foto: Tanjug

The statement was made by the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Đurić, adding that Belgrade has until Sunday to make a decision whether to accept or not accept the “grotesque draft agreement on telecommunications.”
Đurić told reporters that he firmly believes that the ultimatum is unacceptable, and that he as both a negotiator and a Serb can not accept Serbia foregoing its property in Kosovo and Metohija, announcing that if the government, which he supports without reservation, decides otherwise, he will be forced to leave the post of chief negotiator with Priština and Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija.

“We are asked to give up our property when it comes to telecommunications, and also much worse than that – to agree by foregoing Telekom Srbija’s assets that all of our assets in Kosovo and Metohija are not ours anymore and that they belong to the institutions of the self-proclaimed, illegal, fictitious country in Priština,” says Đurić.

According to him, the Serbian Government had serious and difficult discussions about how to proceed in this regard.

“Although I must say that we all fought together for our arguments to win in talks both with representatives of the EU and with representatives of Priština, I am convinced that these conditions are unacceptable,” says Đurić.

Last week, the Belgrade delegation led by Marko Đurić was in talks with Priština in Brussels on the implementation of the agreement on telecommunications, and Đurić says that “something very strange happened” when literally during the night between Thursday and Friday “the paper that lay before us on the table completely changed.”

“The conditions had been fundamentally changed. It is obvious that an outsider, someone who is neither EU nor Priština, intervened in order to make these talks unsuccessful, maybe to achieve some other political goal and to expose Serbia to a kind of pressure that it has never been exposed to not regarding this issue nor many other issues,” says Đurić.

Director of the Office for Kosovo says that our country is faced with the request to accept these outrageous and unacceptable conditions in order to hijack our assets and the assets of Telekom Srbija, prevent normal communication, and in this way establish a precedent, and then transfer this model also to energy.

“They want to use this model to take Gazivode from us, as well as other energy resources and other public and state property. It’s clear that we are asked to accept this as is. Otherwise, there will be no European integration, no further opening of the chapters nor anything else – this is very clear from the subtext,” says Đurić.

When asked who and when gave such an ultimatum to Serbia, Đurić said that this has been happening in the last two or three days, as a direct part of the talks conducted in Brussels last week and the talks that the Prime Minister had in the last few days with different international officials.
According to him, when we ask representatives of the EU or Priština what is it that we as a country or a nation would get by accepting a draft agreement such as this one, the answer is always silence.

“When we say: We do not need such an agreement, so let's not alter or change anything at all – again the answer is silence. There is no real answer,” adds Đurić.