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The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, addressed the emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday regarding situation in Kosovo and Metohija and the abolition of Serbian dinar by the prime minister of the autonomous province of Kosovo, Albin Kurti. The emergency session was held at the request of Serbia, due to the increasingly tense situation in Kosovo and Metohija.
Vučić, thanked the UN Security Council for quickly convening to address the situation. He described the oppression of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as the entire situation, which violates the UN Charter and the Security Council resolution.
“In the past months, the Provisional institutions of Self-Government in Prishtina have created unbearable living conditions of Serbs and are now carrying out widespread systematic attacks on Serbian civilians and their persecution. Such a situation, if there is no adequate reaction, can cause irreparable harm to the survival of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija,” Vučić said.
"Serbia requested the holding of an extraordinary session of the Security Council because Prishtina’s activities are of such a nature that they can cause irreparable harm to the Serbian people, and the immediate reason is the move by the Central Bank of Kosovo to ban the circulation of dinars, which is the culmination of attacks on the Serbian and non-Albanian population because a huge number of inhabitants on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija directly or indirectly depends on dinar income from the Serbian budget and thus they are deprived of the basic means of living,” the Serbian President explained.
“The data that the Republic of Serbia pays 60,946 salaries and pensions in Kosovo and Metohija, 2,430 scholarships for students, and finances soup kitchens that meet the basic needs of around 2,000 socially most vulnerable citizens from this budget, clearly show that this measure is primarily an attack on the Serbian population and that makes the situation in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija difficult,” Vučić told the Security Council. “Only these figures clearly show that a huge number of inhabitants in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija directly or indirectly depend on dinar income from the budget of the Republic of Serbia. As a result, it is obvious that the ban on dinar payments, i.e. the abolition of the dinar as a means of payment, directly deprives a huge number of residents of basic personal means of living.”
The Serbian President pointed out that 1,794 Serbian and non-Albanian farms on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija directly depend on dinar subsidies from the Republic of Serbia, while the survival of 922 economic entities owned by Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, which are directly dependent on dinar payments, are no longer operationally sustainable.
“To sum it up, the decision to ban dinar payments means that Prishtina directly prevents the functioning of all social, health, educational, social, cultural and other institutions that enable Serbs to provide themselves and their families with basic necessities of life, education, treatment, shopping drugs and do all the other things that today are considered normal life with a minimum of human dignity,” Vučić said.
“Since Kurti came to power in 2021, a total of 669 ethnically motivated attacks have been registered in Kosovo and Metohija, which is an increase of 300 percent. Kurti directs the persecution of Serbs, among the incidents are dramatic cases of police beatings and mistreatment of Serbs, and the brutal shooting of Dragisa Galjak and four more Serbs,” Vučić asserted.
“The Prishtina regime, which is responsible for the creation of unbearable living conditions and persecution of Serbs, now claims that it made the decision to abolish the dinar in order to enforce the rule of law, and it is undeniable that the euro was introduced in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija in an illegal manner, and the dinar is a legal means of payment in the Republic of Serbia and cannot be banned in Kosovo and Metohija as part of the territory of Serbia.”
“Although the international community has labeled Prishtina as the sole culprit for the escalation of the situation, Prishtina has essentially not faced the serious consequences of its actions, and the terror against the Serbian population is intensifying, which includes physical attacks on Serbs, and none of the Prishtina armed formations has been subjected to prosecution for this violence.”
“Any prevention of funding of Serbian schools, kindergartens, faculties, hospitals, as well as clinics and health homes represents a direct blow to both the survival of Serbs and the formation of the CSM,” the Serbian President added.
Vučić emphasized that the regime in Prishtina is working to deny the possibility of survival for the Serbs, and it is intensifying a multi-year well-planned, and systematic attack on the Serbian population “basically started the open persecution of the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija.”
“Please keep in mind that the so-called leadership of the Kosovo Albanians uses the term rule of law in order to exclusively harm the Serbs and the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is a practice so widespread that the provisional institutions of self-government have been publicly and openly refusing to carry out the legally binding and final decision for eight years, the decision of its own Supreme Court on the return of the land owned by the Serbian Orthodox monastery Visoki Dečani,” Vučić told the Security Council.
He emphasized that under Prishtina’s so-called rule of law, Serbs are facing mass persecution. Serbs are being detained under false accusations of war and other crimes, while a member of the illegal so-called Kosovo security forces, Azem Kurtaj, who shot a Serbian child Stefan Stojanović, 11 years old, and his cousin Milaš, 21 years old, on Christmas Eve 2023 with an official firearm, is a free man pending trial.
“However, he does not defend himself against accusations of an obvious attempt to murder a child, but of an act equivalent to causing a general danger, like when someone throws firecrackers on New Year’s Eve, for example,” Vučić explained. “In this sense, one must not lose sight of the fact that this is only one of even 470 unpunished ethnically motivated attacks on Serbs, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and their property since 2021, since the head of the so-called Kosovo Albanian leadership, Albin Kurti, has led the persecution of Serbs. Among those incidents that started in 2021 are dramatic cases of countless police beatings and mistreatment of Serbs, and even the brutal and unprovoked shooting of Dragisa Galjak and four other Serbs. Why did Prishtina regime not consider it worthwhile to even formally conduct investigations? For the sake of comparison, during the entire nine years before Kurti’s coming to power in 2021, a total of 669 such ethnically motivated attacks were registered in Kosovo and Metohija, which is an increase of 300 percent.”
“Now they claim that the decision to abolish the legal means of payment, the dinar, was made in order to implement the rule of law. Although this factual contradiction reveals that it is not about any formal rule of law, but only about the mechanism of completing the creation of unbearable living conditions for Serbs and their persecution,” Vučić continued.
The Serbian President also said that Serbia sent a request to KFOR, in accordance with UN resolution 1244 and the military-technical agreement from Kumanovo, to enable the return of the agreed number of Serbian security personnel, who would help international forces in protecting the Serbian population. “Even though it is an international legal document and it clearly imposes an obligation on the KFOR commander to enable such a return, that did not happen,” Vučić said.
“It seems necessary to point out Serbia's policy, which is based on the United Nations Charter and, when it comes to the situation on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, strict compliance with Security Council resolutions. We oppose all factors of instability and strive to be a solid pillar of stability in the Western Balkans region. For years, Serbia has been attracting record amounts of direct foreign investment, greater than the rest of the countries of the region combined. We will also host the Expo with the picturesque name ‘leap into the future.’ I don’t believe that it is in anyone's interest that in a world where too many hot spots have already been opened, the Balkans will again become a zone of instability due to the blind and senseless hatred of the Prishtina regime towards the Serbs living in Kosovo and Metohija,” Vučić told the UN Security Council.
He expressed hope that after the session, even those members of the United Nations Security Council who recognized the illegal unilaterally declared independence of the southern Serbian province will understand that Prishtina’s latest moves are not just an attempt to consolidate something that a significant majority of United Nations members, including Serbia, do not recognize as the state, but are a threat to peace.
“Prishtina’s attempt to implement the abolition of the dinar payment transaction and remove the dinar as a means of payment is nothing more than another widespread and systematic attack on the Serbian population, a crime against humanity,” Vučić stated.
