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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Durable solution for Kosovo can be found only through systematic, responsible and gradual negotiations

Belgrade/New York, 13 September 2006

Head of the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo-Metohija Sanda Raskovic-Ivic said today in New York that a lasting solution for Kosovo-Metohija can be found only through systematic, responsible and gradual negotiations.

At the UN Security Council’s session dedicated to Kosovo-Metohija, Raskovic-Ivic said that nervousness, irrational hastiness and arrogance will not contribute to finding a sustainable solution for Kosovo-Metohija nor to peace and stability of the Southeast European region.

She repeated that only patience and eyes kept wide open to reality and the future can bring to a true compromise of the Kosovo-Metohija issue and also stressed that an imposed solution would not solve the problem, but would have fatal consequences.

We are strongly assured that only by systematic, responsible and gradual negotiations on the future status of Kosovo-Metohija, with no superficial deadlines that only create additional pressure, is it possible to find a durable solution for this issue, she said and stressed that otherwise there may be new complications with fatal consequences that always take place when universal principles of the international community are disobeyed.

Raskovic-Ivic stressed the importance of the Security Council as guarantor for preserving universal principles of international law and the whole international order and stressed that only through consistent respect of international principles, such as inviolability of sovereignty and territorial integrity of democratic countries, is it possible to preserve and improve peace and stability in the Balkan region.

She pointed to the fact that since the previous session of the Security Council held three months ago, there have been 51 incidents of smaller or higher intensity in Kosovo-Metohija in which the lives and property of Serbs were targeted, while from October 24, 2005 to September 1, 2006 there were 260 such incidents.

Raskovic-Ivic concluded that the implementation of principles and concrete solutions from the Platform of the Serbian negotiating team on Kosovo's future status in the longer term remains the only way for a satisfactory resolution of the grim situation in the province.

She said that that can be achieved only by making steps towards the establishment of the rule of law, punishment of criminals and terrorists, their bringing to justice, as well as towards the creation of safety and all other conditions for a normal life Political steps should include convincing the ethnic Albanian side to give up extreme, exclusive requests and accept a rational and compromising solution - autonomy with broad, substantial powers stated Raskovic-Ivic.