Serbia campaigning against Kosovo in the Council of Europe

2024-04-12 22:32:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Serbian government officials said that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Friday sent a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European leaders to oppose Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe, despite Western calls for the implementation of the the agreement for the normalization of relations with Kosovo, which requires that the parties do not hinder each other in the integration processes.

On Friday, the Serbian president met the Chinese ambassador in Belgrade, Li Ming, to ask for China's support in Serbia's efforts against the possible adoption of a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly on the genocide in Srebrenica.

President Vu?i? described these two issues as "serious challenges" for Serbia. Last week, he ordered his government to establish a working group to oppose Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe, while the Parliamentary Assembly of this mechanism is expected to vote on April 16, and then the matter goes to the Council of Ministers.

On Thursday evening, the Serbian president, who gathered in Belgrade the leaders of his government and those of the Republika Srpska, again outlined the possibility that his country will withdraw from the Council of Europe if Kosovo becomes a member, while strongly criticizing the main Western countries that criticized The Serbian List in Kosovo due to its calls for boycotting the vote for the dismissal of the mayors in the four municipalities in the north of Kosovo.

"They should be ashamed", he said, accusing the Westerners of wanting to make Kosovo part of the Council of Europe "without fulfilling the conditions", emphasizing the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority.

On March 27, the Committee for Politics and Democracy gave the green light to Kosovo's request for membership in the Council of Europe. Serbia voted against.

The committee said after the vote that it welcomed an extensive list of commitments made in writing by the Kosovo authorities while underlining that the establishment of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities should be a "post-accession commitment" for Kosovo, which would help ensure the protection of the rights of Kosovo Serbs.

The countries of the "Quint", as the main five Western countries are known, consisting of the United States, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, see the issue of Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe as a lever to exert pressure on the government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, to take steps towards the establishment of the Association, which is also the most difficult point of the Kosovo-Serbia talks.

Serbian President Vucic met the Chinese ambassador in Belgrade on Friday to ask for China's support "in the fight for the truth before the United Nations".

A draft resolution declaring April 11 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Genocide in Srebrenica is expected to be presented at the UN on April 17. Rwanda and Germany are leading this effort, but according to information provided by VOA, the United States, Albania, Bosnia, Chile, Finland, New Zealand, Turkey, France and other countries are also part of this initiative.

On July 11, 1995, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica. Despite the decision of international courts that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, Belgrade denies such a thing.

The former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic and the soldier Ratko Mladic, have been sentenced to life imprisonment by the UN Court for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, for war crimes and genocide in Srebrenica.

The Serbian president described the initiative for the UN resolution as "impudent" emphasizing that Serbia "will oppose NATO countries, from Germany to Turkey".

The pro-Russian president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, warned that his entity's parliament will take action to abandon decision-making institutions in Bosnia if the resolution passes, which he says "aims to make Serbs collectively guilty of genocide". , again denying that this happened in Srebrenica.

Milorad Dodiku is under the sanctions of the United States and the United Kingdom due to the efforts for the secession of his entity and the union with Serbia.

The Government of the Republika Srpska started at the end of March the process of approving its electoral law, with which it aims to take the powers from the central authorities of Bosnia.

On Friday, the US embassy in Sarajevo said the establishment of a parallel electoral system by the Republika Srpska government would be unconstitutional and against the Dayton accord, which ended the war in Bosnia in 1995.

"Milorad Dodik is mistaken if he thinks the United States will stand by while he pursues his separatist agenda and pushes Bosnia towards conflict," said a post from the US embassy shared on the X network, underscoring that "any attempt by a entity or any other sub-state entity to secede is an action against Dayton that will not be tolerated."

The West is concerned that Russia may try to foment instability in Bosnia to divert some of the attention from the war in Ukraine. Bosnia remains ethnically tense and politically fragile after the 1992-1995 war that left over 100,000 dead and millions displaced./ VOA