Kosovo Serbs' Rights Brutally Trampled Upon

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Kosovo Serbs' Rights Brutally Trampled Upon, Says Draskovic

Beta Novinska Agencjia
September 15, 2005

At the U.N. summit, on Sept. 15, Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic declared that there was "no people in Europe today whose rights are so brutally trampled upon" as the rights of the Serb people in Kosovo and Metohija.

"There is no people in Europe today whose rights are so brutally trampled upon as are the rights of the Serb people in Kosovo, the province administered by the United Nations since June 10, 1999," Draskovic said in his address at the session of the U.N. General Assembly.

The state union foreign minister stressed that Serbia-Montenegro, as the largest country on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, was dedicated to good relations with all its neighbors, and that it was oriented toward Europe.

"The United Europe to which we belong is our goal and our future. Unfortunately, in one part of Serbia, in Kosovo and Metohija, political extremism, often hand in glove with terrorism, demanding, in the form of an ultimatum, the creation of another Albanian state, is a serious obstacle to stability in the entire Balkans," said Draskovic.

The Serbia-Montenegro foreign minister also asked for respect for the principle that state borders "can neither be changed by force nor renamed."

"We demand that the Serbs, Montenegrins and other non-Albanians in Kosovo enjoy the rights guaranteed to them by the United Nations Charter and to have the United Nations respect, in accordance with its Charter and international law, the principle that borders of states can neither be changed by force nor renamed. The respect of these principles will open the doors to an agreement on the future human and European status of Kosovo," Draskovic stated.

He also said he encouraged the agreement reached in condemning terrorism "wherever, by whomever and for whatever purposes it was committed."

"I believe that this will put an end to the policy of double standards so that the killers of children and civilians in Beslan, in Kosovo and elsewhere cannot be called or treated otherwise than as terrorists," Draskovic stated further.


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