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Belgrade requests that Serbian sacred sites in Kosovo be guarded by Serbian police

Belgrade, 3 March 2007

President of the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo-Metohija and member of the state team for negotiations on the future status of Kosovo Sanda Raskovic-Ivic spoke in an interview to today's issue of daily Danas about last week's negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina concerning protection of religious and cultural heritage in the province.

Sanda Raskovic-Ivic

The Serbian government's official website brings excerpts from the interview:

On protection of religious and cultural heritage in the province:

- Although this is a topic for which it is claimed that differences in the positions of the two sides in the negotiations are the smallest, in this field ethnic Albanians have not accepted a single amendment Belgrade submitted to the proposal of UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. They agreed with Ahtisaari's document more or less, although they made a few amendments. One of them is concerning building trust and signing a memorandum of understanding concerning cultural heritage. We welcome that initiative, but we should first solve basic problems and define the entire situation concerning the church and cultural heritage in Kosovo-Metohija and only after that can we talk about the memorandum of understanding between the two sides.

Has the sufficient number of Belgrade's amendments on this issue been examined?

- Yes, a lot of that has been examined and UNOSEK representatives promised that they will look at our proposals. They tried to explain to us why the protection zones have been reduced, saying that square metres and hectares are not what matters, but the principle behind it. We presented arguments showing the contrary - that the principle of freedom and survival of monasteries and churches in Kosovo-Metohija is defended by square metres and hectares.

What was the most disputed issue?

- The guarding of protection zones. The Albanian side did not agree with our amendment proposing that the main responsibility for the safety of Serbian religious and cultural sites in the province rest on international military forces which will closely cooperate with the forces of the Republic of Serbia which will return to the province in line with the UN Security Council Resolution 1244. We do not want to send soldiers because we are in favour of Kosovo's demilitarisation, but Serbian police especially trained for guarding sacred sites which would cooperate with international forces.

On Ahtisaari's final proposal:

- We believe that there will be changes in his final proposal. Of course, we cannot expect a spectacular change, but we can get closer to our ideas and positions with small steps. I would be unrealistic and too ambitious if I said that they will accept all our positions. They will not, but it is important that we achieve as much as possible. We could live with that somehow. But before the UN session, some more dramatic changes in Kosovo-Metohija shouldn't be expected.