30 October 2024
Main statement:
Madam President,
We are grateful to Special Representative of the Secretary General Caroline Ziadeh for her briefing on the situation in the province and the insights she shared.
We welcome the participation of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Serbia Marko Djuric in this meeting. We have listened to the opinion of Ms. Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz. Once again, we are deeply impressed by her “vast” historical knowledge and her “in-depth geopolitical reflections”.
Inter-ethnic strife in Kosovo is at its 15-year high. The “root of this evil” is unchanged. It stems from the aspiration of the so-called “authorities” in Pristina to establish full control over the Serb-populated northern part of the province, and they are eager to do that with the full connivance of their Western patrons.
Many of the specific manifestations of this aggressive policy were reflected in the UN Secretary General’s semi-annual report regarding the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
Pristina’s malicious provocations include the ban on the circulation of the Serbian dinar in the province, the forced closure of administrative bodies providing services to Serbs in Kosovo, the expropriation of land parcels belonging to Serb residents in Kosovo, and the squeezing out of non-Albanian community institutions and businesses. Under vain pretexts, Serbs are being arrested, schools and hospitals are being raided, homes of returning refugees are being set on fire, and Orthodox churches are being desecrated. We join in the Secretary-General’s call to take these threats very seriously.
Despite the formal lifting of the unilateral embargo imposed on goods from Serbia in June 2023, several kilometers long queues of trucks have piled up at the Merdare crossing, which is the only crossing currently open for entry. As customary, the West prefers to turn a blind eye to all this, waxing lyrical about the alleged “constructive steps” being taken by the Kosovo Albanians and giving them credit for solving the problem they themselves created by ignoring their obligations assumed under the Central European Free Trade Agreement.
In 2024 alone, there has been recorded 93 inter-ethnic incidents against Serbs in Kosovo, and since the ultra-nationalist Self-Determination movement came to power in February 2021, the number of such incidents has reached 550. The so-called “prime minister” Albin Kurti has de facto declared war on all things Serbian, putting the Orthodox community in the province on the brink of survival. And yet, he cynically asserts that he is supposedly “continuing to fight against today’s fascism in Kosovo and beyond.”
The systematic terror against Kosovo Serbs is best explained by the catastrophically low rate of refugee returns mentioned in the report – only 13 people returned during the last six months (only 7 of them are Serbs). At the same time, the outflow of the non-Albanian population has risen sharply, which jeopardizes not only the traditionally multi-ethnic structure of society, but also the long-term socio-economic prospects of the province.
It is obvious that unless we stand up to Albin Kurti, he will continue cleaning out Serbian enclaves, and his appetites will only grow. An example of this is the demand to open Serbia’s airspace for commercial flights to Kosovo.
However, the West continues to abet Pristina trying to prop up its international legal personality. Kosovo’s status in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has been raised, and significant work has been done to get the province accepted to the Council of Europe. In turn, Belgrade is repeatedly facing demands to recognize the “independence” of the province. In order to exert greater pressure, Chapter 35 of Serbia’s European integration file was supplemented with the relevant “obligations”, supposedly arising from the oral Brussels-Ohrid understandings of 2023. Moreover, relevant official documents – Brussels agreements of 2013 and 2015 –– were deliberately “forgotten” because they, inter alia, bind Pristina to establishing the Community of Serb Municipalities of Kosovo (CSMK). Let me repeat once again for all present here: the establishment of this community is not simply a wish, but an obligation placed upon Pristina, which it has been sabotaging for more than a decade. Moreover, this obligation must be implemented in full, without pseudo-compromises on the part of our Western colleagues. We demand that these fraudulent games be put to an end and that Pristina be obliged to immediately begin the establishment of the CSMK.
A clear threat to security in the region is posed by the attempts of some external actors to boost military capabilities of the Kurti regime. The NATO countries continue to supply Kosovo with weapons, including armored personnel carriers, anti-tank missile systems, reconnaissance and strike drones. Within three years, Pristina expects to put into service over 350 armored vehicles and acquire its own fleet of military helicopters. This is a flagrant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which defines the international contingent for Kosovo as the sole military presence to be accepted in the province.
We support the set of measures proposed by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic aimed at overcoming the deep crisis the settlement process is currently in. These include a return to the status quo ante principle, which implies that Pristina is to cancel all discriminatory measures taken against the Serbs, put an end to police and humanitarian terror against the non-Albanian population, and return Serbian representatives to legislative, judicial and municipal authorities. We deem this to be justified that Belgrade intends to once again request the return to Kosovo of up to 1,000 Serb military and police personnel, as per UNSC resolution 1244.
We’ve been following very closely what began in the Hague in April 2023, which is the trial against the leaders of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. This trial was supposed to take place many years ago as part of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), but the ICTY turned a blind eye to the crimes committed by those individuals. Reports on the activities of the Special Court make it clear that defendants are trying to exercise pressure on witnesses, and even if there are convictions, the time to be spent in detention tend to be subsequently reduced on appeal. We hope that the criminals will nevertheless receive the punishment they deserve, albeit it may be much delayed.
The West’s political protectionism towards Pristina is increasingly fueling Kurti’s ambitions of a Greater Albania. Thus, Kurti is trying to destabilize regions of central Serbia with a large Muslim population, and enthusiastically meeting with the marginal Serbian opposition. There has been no reaction from Washington nor Brussels to the interference of the nationalist movement “Self-Determination” in the electoral processes in Northern Macedonia; likewise, the attempts to undermine the territorial integrity of Montenegro have been ignored.
Madam President,
In these difficult circumstances, UNMIK is needed more than ever, much like the maintenance of its human and financial capacities. Regular discussion of the situation in Kosovo should remain on the Council’s agenda and they should take place in an open format.
We draw attention to the fact that the Kosovo Albanians were involved in detaining on 28 May 2019 a Russian citizen serving in UNMIK, Mr. Mikhail Krasnoshchekov, and inflicting grievous bodily harm on him, but these individuals have not yet been brought to account so far. Another Russian citizen, Mr. Andrei Antonov, was declared persona non grata on December 31, 2021, and his personal safety was put at risk; this was done by an unlawful decision taken by the province “authorities”. Alas, no one has been brought to justice for that either.
Russia’s position on Kosovo remains unchanged. We stand in favor of Belgrade and Pristina reaching a sustainable mutually acceptable solution strictly falling within the international legal framework, which is UNSC resolution 1244. Such an outcome would satisfy the interests of Belgrade and the Serbian people and would secure the support of the Security Council.
I thank you for your attention.
Right of reply by DPR Anna Evstigneeva:
Madam President,
Of course, I would like to respond to Ms. Gërvalla-Schwarz, who has been invited to the meeting under rule 39 of the UNSC provisional rules of procedure as the person who is to brief the Security Council on the agenda item under consideration.
However, this is the second time she has told us about Milosevic, about historical background, foreign medals and other conflicts. At the same time, she cannot concentrate and answer the questions regarding the implementation of resolution 1244, the Brussels agreements of 2013 and 2015. Nor can she answer the questions why the Community of Serb Municipalities has not been established, why the rights of the Serb population in the province are violated, why Serbs who are detained are subjected to violence (including minors, for example, for singing songs in Serbian), why the houses of returning refugees are set on fire, and why Orthodox churches are desecrated. These are the questions on which our briefing should focus, but apparently there are no answers.
Thank you for your attention.