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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Resolving Kosovo-Metohija status must not question Serbia’s and Serbia-Montenegro’s sovereignty and territorial integrity

Belgrade/New York, 27 May 2005

Head of the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo-Metohija Nebojsa Covic said at the UN Security Council session today that the basic principle of Belgrade’s policy is the inviolability of borders and preservation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia and the state union of Serbia and Montenegro and that these must not be questioned in the process of resolving the future status of Kosovo-Metohija.

Nebojsa Covic addresses the members of the Security Council during a meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York

Author: Radio Television Serbia

Full text of Nebojsa Covic’s speech:

Esteemed Mr. President, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to greet you on behalf of the Council of Ministers of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and to express my pleasure at having this opportunity to participate in the today’s United Nations Security Council session on Kosovo and Metohija.

We have just heard yet another Technical Report of the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General regarding the situation in Kosovo and Metohija. Every opportunity we have to inform the international community about the extremely difficult position of the Serbian and other non-Albanian communities in the Province is extremely important for us. Today’s meeting, however, is of special significance. This is because, if on the basis of the presented Report and the recommendations by the Secretary General to launch a comprehensive review of the standard implementation, talks on the future status commence, we have to have a concrete, and not imagined progress in Kosovo and Metohija.

Let us go back, for a moment, to the Security Council meeting in February of this year and to the Technical Report presented on that occasion. I would like to remind you that the mentioned Report commented critically on and indicated the absence of results in achieving standards, particularly in the area of the respect of rights of the non-Albanian communities. However, the Report we have in front of us today notes “significant progress” and implies that the prescribed standards have been met or are in the final phase of being met. Such a progress, had it really been made for such a short period of time, would no doubt be an amazing feat. Alas, the reality in Kosovo and Metohija is quite different.

The Report we heard today regrettably, links the most important problems to the Kosovo and Metohija Serbs and to the Government of the Republic of Serbia and its authorities. In view of the fact that Serbs and other non-Albanians live isolated in enclaves precisely because their safety is jeopardized and there is no freedom of movement, the statement that the freedom of movement exists in all municipalities in the Province except in the Northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, is inaccurate. Allow me to remind you that the seat of the District Court is in Northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica and the President of the Court and all other employees are members of the Albanian national community. They come to work every day with no problems whatsoever and we sincerely hope that the same level of freedom of movement will soon be achieved for minority communities in all other parts of Kosovo and Metohija.

This Report should not have omitted to mention that there are still 230,000 internally displaced Serbs and other non-Albanians who cannot return to their homes, and not because they do not want to, but because UNMIK and KFOR cannot guarantee to these people safety and freedom of movement. According to the UNHCR data, for the past 6 years, around 12,000 internally displaced persons returned, out of whom 5,000 are Serbs. However, despite the officially proclaimed support to returns that was expressed on several occasions, one more, so called “year of returns’’ is wearing away, yet there are no results. Most of the activities of potential returnees more or less boil down to visits to their demolished and burnt down homes and desecrated graveyards. We sincerely hope that this year we will witness a transformation and that the representatives of the UNMIK and the Provisional Institutions of Local Self-Government will agree to sign with us a Protocol on Organized Returns which would break the deadlock, initiate the process and make it more efficient. This would entail more energetic measures regarding the eviction of those who threatening with violence, are illegally using Serbian property. Further to this, it should be kept in mind that out of 27,000 court decisions that have been passed in the last six years on the restitution of the usurped property to their rightful owners, only 300 of these decisions have actually been carried out.

This Report should also have included the data on 150 demolished and burnt down Serbian churches and monasteries, out of which 60 of them, being sites of the highest importance, enjoyed high level of protection. While these holy sites await reconstruction, they are quietly being decomposed - brick by brick and the very trace of their existence is being destroyed.

This Report does not mention the fact that the Assembly and the Government of Kosovo and Metohija are not truly multi-ethnic, since no protection is provided for the non-Albanian communities from outvoting. Kosovo and Metohija Serbs do participate in those institutions in which they stand a chance of achieving their vital interests, particularly in those municipalities in which they have won at the last local elections. Also, this Report makes no mention of the illegal privatization of the Serbian property which continues with no strategy whatsoever for an economic recovery and for finding solutions for the problem of high unemployment rate. This Report does not reflect sufficiently on the problem of organized crime, a problem that even Albanian parliamentary parties point out as an evil that permeates all segments of life in the Province.

I believe that you will agree that reports should not be written to satisfy only one side. But apart from embellished reports on the virtual reality of Kosovo and Metohija, I would like to use this opportunity to point out yet another worrying aspect of activities of the United Nations Administration in the Province which has a mandate to implement the 1244 United Nations Security Council Resolution without being in favor of any of the parties involved. Unfortunately, the steps that were taken recently jeopardize considerably the credibility not only of the UNMIK but of the United Nations organization on the whole and question the impartiality of the role they should play in the future processes. By making politically sensitive request for obtaining a special international dialing code, a special international code for the Priština Airport, by international visits of the Provisional Institutions representatives without the presence of UNMIK officials, and other similar initiatives that create an impression that, internationally, Kosovo and Metohija is a completely separate entity, the interests and requests of only one community living in the Province are being catered to, thus severely violating the 1244 Resolution and prejudging the future status of the Province. The most recent initiative regarding the establishing of the Kosovo Forum, meant to consolidate the Kosovo and Metohija Albanian leaders and to provide a framework within which they should prepare themselves for negotiations on the future status, speaks volumes in favor of my claim. I would like to remind you that the UNMIK is not present in the Province to cater to the objectives and interests of one community only, regardless of the size of that particular community and regardless of the possible consequences of that community’s dissatisfaction if their one-sided requests are not met.

It is only human to want to show the success achieved, and I can understand that in the same way I can understand the need of the international community to direct its attention and resources to other hotbeds of crisis around the world. However, I will reiterate once again that by writing embellished reports that would serve to satisfy these needs, a poor compromise is made for the Albanian majority. This will not be conducive to achieving a modern, democratic and multi-ethnic society – something we defined at the very beginning as our common objective.

We therefore welcome the balanced approach the Secretary General has given in his political assessment and recommendations.

As always, the authorities in Belgrade are trying to facilitate the process of achieving this common goal of ours by adopting a constructive approach and we stand united in their view that a truly democratic and multi-ethnic society is the only path to follow. At this point, however, I would like to stress that the cornerstone of the state policy of Belgrade is that the state borders cannot be changed and that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in the process of finding the solution for the future status of Kosovo and Metohija, cannot be questioned. We are completely ready to search, in cooperation with all international factors and through direct dialogue with Priština, for a peaceful, comprehensive and permanent solution of the Kosovo and Metohija problems, which includes full implementation of the 1244 United Nations Security Council Resolution. The President and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia extended invitations to both the President and the Prime Minster of Kosovo and Metohija for a direct dialogue. Although there has been no positive reply from Priština, until now the invitation for a sincere dialogue, deprived of any conditions, remains open, and it should take place at the very heart where the problem lies, because we deem that a direct dialogue is the only road to follow if solutions to the problems faced by our citizens living in the Province, are to be found. We hope that the leaders of the Kosovo and Metohija Albanians will demonstrate in this case too “the growing political awareness” and readiness for a dialogue. As we have announced at the last session, we have reactivated the Working Group for the Missing and Kidnapped Persons, the Working Group for the Returns and the Working Group for Energy as agreed during the Vienna process, while the reactivation of the Working Group for Transportation and Communication is expected in the next couple of weeks. We are currently defining modalities for participation in the work of the Working Group for Decentralization, a working group we consider to be the most important indicator of the multi-ethnic character of the Provisional Institutions of self-government. We have also proposed the establishing of two more working groups for technical dialogue, a Working Group for Privatization and a Working Group for Environment Protection, but we have not yet received a reply.

During all the discussions we have recently had with the representatives of the international community regarding the forthcoming pace of the process of finding the solution for the Kosovo and Metohija problems, we have been reassured that there will be no automatism applied in this process and that concrete results in achieving our common objective have to precede every new step. Should the Report that was presented today be taken as the objective state of affairs in the field, it will serve as the basis for the very automatism that has so far been resolutely ruled out as a possibility. Should a formal evaluation based on this Report commence now, despite the fact that realistically speaking, standards have not been adequately met, we hope that the new Special Envoy in charge of evaluating the achieved progress, will demonstrate a high level of impartiality and personal integrity and that he will summon enough courage to present the situation in Kosovo and Metohija as it really is.

It would be counterproductive to open the status discussion before the standards have been substantively implemented, i.e. the basic provisions of the 1244 United Nations Security Council Resolution. According to the relevant indicators, Kosovo and Metohija is far from this. However, should the decision to commence with the talks on the future status be made in spite of everything, these discussions will be burdened with the extremism of the Albanian leaders, who will get the wrong idea that the international community is yielding to their policy of ethnic cleansing. The issue of the future status must be solved by means of reaching agreements and finding compromise, but above all, with full respect for the basic international principle of preserving sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

As a high official of a powerful country recently put it, road signs to the future are hurriedly being put in place in Kosovo and Metohija. Will these road signs lead the Serbian and other non-Albanian communities into a modern, democratic and multi-ethnic society and guide the region towards stability and its future within the European Union, without changing the internationally recognized borders, depends on all of us.

Thank you for your attention.