President on Kosovo resolution, NATO membership

Source: Beta, Tanjug

BELGRADE -- Serbia’s President Tomislav Nikolić was answering citizens’ questions about Kosovo, NATO and other issues on RTS on Thursday night.

Tomislav Nikolić (Beta, file)

He said that he expected the parliament’s resolution on Kosovo to be adopted on January 11 and that it would have a majority support of MPs.
“I think parliament will on January 11 adopt the resolution that the platform is a part of and which will be slightly changed compared to the initial draft but principles will remain unchanged. Once parliament has adopted it, it will no longer be possible to change it and we can call it the Holy Bible from then on,” the president explained.

He expressed expectation that opposition representatives would show during the voting on the resolution that they were responsible.

“I did not expect I could propose something that Albanians would be satisfied with because that would be Kosovo’s independence but an ideal result would be that would leave neither Serbs nor Albanians dissatisfied,” Nikolić said.

Commenting on the monument to members of the so-called Liberation Army of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa (UCPMB; OVPMB) in the southern town of Preševo, he said that the authorities should remove the memorial if ethnic Albanian political leaders refused to remove it themselves. He added that he had already discussed the issue with PM and Interior Minister Ivica Dačić.

“Serbia needs to react and Serbia will react. The memorial should be removed by Albanians themselves, by political leaders of the Albanians in southern Serbia and if they want to show that they lead their people so they can have a good life in Serbia. If they do not want that, then Serbia should remove the plaque in broad daylight and show that something like that is not allowed by Serbia’s laws,” Nikolić underscored.

He added that the government had his full support to remove the memorial and that he was ready to “take the risk for possible attacks from the country and the world”.

“This is not allowed anywhere, anywhere in the world and it will not be allowed in Serbia either,” the president stressed.

According to him, talks with ethnic Albanians’ political leaders are already underway.

He said that Serbia needed to show decisiveness now, just as it had been showing it in combat against crime and investments.

“This is not a small issue, it is about nipping the evil in the bud or letting it thrive,” the president explained.
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