April22, 2024
Point of order:
I was going to say this in my statement, but I think now it would be more appropriate to raise it as a point of order.
President Vučić was first, but I wanted to say the same thing. Ms. Osmani constantly refers to the people sitting behind her as members of her delegation. Ms. Osmani has been invited here under Rule 39 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure as a briefer for today’s meeting. Her participation does not imply that she has a delegation. The people sitting behind her should (if allowed here by the Protocol) be sitting in the side seats of this Chamber. This is a clear violation of the rules of procedure, and whoever did it, Madam President, we ask that it be dealt with.
Point of order:
Ms. Osmani may think she has a cabinet, ministers, advisers and whatever else she wants. In our understanding, Ms. Osmani does not have a cabinet. Even if she thinks she does, Ms. Osmani is invited here under Rule 39 as a private individual. Let me underscore that again.
Main statement:
Mme. President,
We thank SRSG Ziadeh for the briefing on the situation in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and the insights that she shared. We welcome President of Serbia, Mr. Aleksander Vučić, to this meeting. We also listened to Ms. Vjosa Osmani.
We will get back to today’s incident later. Let me just say that it was not Ms. Osmani, but the United Nations Security Council who established UNSC procedures. Once again, Ms. Osmani was invited today in her personal capacity, in which regard I have a question. Who is it sitting behind Ms. Osmani at this moment? And who do they represent? I would ask the Secretariat and the President of the Council to answer that question, this can be done after my statement.
Mme.President,
This is a regular meeting of the Security Council to discuss the work of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). It is taking place against a remarkable backdrop: 25 years ago, NATO started its aggression against Yugoslavia, the consequences of which continue to have a direct impact on the deteriorating situation in the Balkans. NATO’s unlawful intervention in the affairs of a sovereign state resulted in cruel bombings that continued for 78 days and caused unimaginable suffering, thousands of casualties, and catastrophic destruction for the population. During these days in 1999, bombing raids took place almost daily. Thus, on April 21, they hit the refugee camp in Maja. On April 22, they destroyed government buildings and civilian infrastructure. On April 23, they attacked the headquarters of Radio-Television Serbia. May 7 marked an egregious attack against the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Belgrade. We hope that journalists covering today’s meeting of the United Nations Security Council will recall these tragic events, which could have been avoided if the United States and its allies had not trampled on international law.
NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia was a flagrant violation of the fundamental purposes and principles of the UN Charter, the CSCE Helsinki Final Act, and the norms and principles of international humanitarian law. It also undermined the authority of the UN Security Council, which had never approved NATO’s actions. This aggression was a turning point in world history and revived the spirit of confrontation in international relations, which had not manifested itself in such a form since the end of the Cold War.
That’s what we offered to discuss at the Security Council back in March. It is not a “long-gone historical matter”, as we have been told here, but a situation, the consequences of which are still there and whose lessons have not been learned. However, Western members on the Security Council requested a procedural vote twice to prevent this meeting. It is clear now that they did so not only out of cowardice and a desire to “sweep under the rug” their crimes of those years, but also in order to conceal their true intentions towards Belgrade and the Serb people inhabiting the Balkan region. This situation logically fits into the US and EU’s policy of pressure on Serbia – one of the few European states that dares to pursue an independent policy and defend its interests. As far as the failed Security Council meeting on the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia, we cannot but note that this was where our French and American colleagues clearly demonstrated cynical hypocrisy. When they spoke up against discussing the consequences of NATO crimes on their 25th anniversary, they told us that it was not proper for the Security Council to discuss historical dates, that there was no need to stir up the past and waste time on it. But less than a few weeks from that moment, a draft resolution on Srebrenica, dedicated to even older events, was pushed to the General Assembly with their direct involvement. It is noteworthy that standing at the helm of the new “crusade” was Germany, the country that committed the largest genocide in the history of mankind in the twentieth century and took active part in the bombings and collapse of Yugoslavia. Remember that it was in Sarajevo that Germany’s air force was first used for combat since 1945. Just think of it.
Mme. President,
The situation in Kosovo and in the region is of utmost concern to us; and it continues to deteriorate. The matter is very serious, which is confirmed by the participation of the President of Serbia in today’s meeting.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the collective West to cover up the obvious and systemic ethnicity-based violence by the provisional self-government institutions in Pristina. “Prime Minister” A.Kurti actually pushes openly for a mass exodus of non-Albanian population. In the past six months, only 84 refugees (out of 200,000) representing national minorities have returned to the Province, because it has become unsafe for Serbs to stay there, no matter how much Kosovo’s Western sponsors try to hide it.
Mme. President,
Pristina repeatedly thwarts its dialogue with Belgrade making it clear that this will be the case unless Serbia recognizes Kosovo’s quasi-statehood. The United States and the European Union fully support this unsophisticated approach, demanding that Belgrade “de facto recognize” Kosovo, ignoring the basic Brussels Agreements of 2013-2015, and imposing the unsigned oral arrangements of February-May 2023, hypocritically calling them legally binding. In this meeting they already referred to that a couple of times.
Instead of good-faith mediation, the European Union took A. Kurti’s side, and so it bears direct responsibility for the devastating consequences of his policy. Washington and Brussels try to replace UN Security Council resolution 1244 with knowingly impossible schemes that aim at tearing off Serbia’s southern province. Great Britain is playing a game of its own, having offered to use the Belfast Agreement of 1998 as a model for solving the Kosovo issue. They say Belgrade could take on the role of Dublin with regard to Catholics in Northern Ireland. Serbia is offered not only to accept Kosovo’s “sovereignty”, but also to act as a guarantor for the integration of fellow Serbs in the province into Pristina’s governance.
There has been no progress with establishing the Community of Serbian Municipalities of Kosovo (CSMK) either. In violation of their Brussels commitments, Western countries have tailored their draft CSMK statutes to accommodate the demands of Kosovo Albanians. Competences of the municipalities have been emasculated, and demands to respect Kosovo’s “constitution,” “laws” and “territorial integrity” have been added. As if it was not enough, Kosovo authorities went even farther. They say they will write the statute themselves when they deem it necessary. That means never.
In the Serb-populated north of Kosovo, a special police force has been deployed which consists of ethnic Albanians. To meet its needs, land plots and other property are being taken from local residents. This lawlessness was covered up by scam Albanian mayors who usurped power following pseudo-elections in April 2023. The citizens had demanded to recall those “mayors”, however A.Kurti turned it into a farce through gross manipulation. No surprise that Serbs refused to take part in this shameful event.
The province-wide census, which began in April, was not without malicious intent too. The census included a separate polling form to survey the damage suffered by citizens during the conflict. But that only covers the period until June 1999, i.e. before the withdrawal of the Serbian army and police from Kosovo. The human and material losses among the non-Albanian population that took place in the following years as a result of the terror unleashed by Pristina are of no interest to the local “authorities” and will not be included in the general statistics. This is a follow-up on efforts to discredit the Serbs to unjustifiably label them as a “genocidal nation”, which is what Western countries are trying to achieve, i.a. with regard to Srebrenica.
Since June 2023, the import of goods, including food and medicines, from central Serbia to Kosovo has been suspended. Belgrade-administered structures are being systematically dismantled. Since the beginning of the year, seven Serb administrations south of the Ibar River have been suspended. An act of discrimination was the ban on the circulation of the Serbian dinar, accompanied by raids by the “police” on post offices, closure of banks, capture of cash delivery vehicles. A. Kurti and his regime purposefully deprived tens of thousands of people of their livelihoods and carried out a real policy of ethnic cleansing.
Attacks on Serbian Orthodox Church and the Albanization of Serbian spiritual heritage continue. In November 2023, a very telling incident took place in the municipality of Podujevo. A self-appointed “priest” from Albania infiltrated the St. Michael the Archangel Church, where he conducted a service in Albanian and announced the establishment of a “National Albanian Church” in the province. Orthodox worship sites are being declared Catholic, Serb church-goers are declared occupants, and the history of the province is brazenly falsified.
Contrary to UN Security Council Resolution 1244, NATO members pump arms into Kosovo helping to create an “army” of its own. Kosovo Albanians themselves become more and more aggressive, announcing large-scale military preparations and developing a “comprehensive defense concept”. Kosovo’s military budget is growing steadily.
This being said, we are surprised that the report of the UN Secretary-General again fails to mention these egregious facts, as well as the humanitarian consequences of the trade blockade of the Province and the ban of Serbian dinar. In this connection, we demand that the Head of the UN Secretariat and his subordinates not conceal inconvenient facts or cover up for the authorities in Pristina.
Mme. President,
Pristina keeps generating pan-Albanian rhetoric in the spirit of perceiving Kosovo’s independence as a “temporary project on the way to unification with Albania”. Albin Kurti’s desire to revise borders undermines regional stability and leads to interference in the internal affairs of neighboring states. Representatives of his party have joined the Albanian opposition coalition in the upcoming elections to the Parliament of Northern Macedonia, as President Vučić mentioned today. This is a telling example how the Kosovo authorities propagate centrifugal tendencies in the Balkans.
However, instead of deserved condemnation, Kosovars receive indulgences from the West that take the form of visa-free travel to the Schengen zone and promotion of their application for membership in the Council of Europe. The PACE vote on April 16 was another heavy blow to international law. Contrary to its Statute, a candidate who is not a state is about to be admitted to the Council of Europe. The fair proposal of Serbia to wait for the UN Security Council decision on the status of Kosovo was ignored. The list of pre-accession requirements for Pristina is ridiculous. The Council of Europe still has a chance to avoid a shameful outcome at the meeting of its Committee of Ministers in May. We urge not to let go of it.
The egregious situation mentioned in the Secretary-General’s report regarding the raids at UNMIK offices in municipalities of Zveçan, Zubin Potok and Leposavić is worth a special mention. Following the incidents of May 2023, UNMIK’s offices were again broken into and looted. In one of them, staff of Kosovo Albanian “city administration” is now stationed. This points to Pristina infringing on the inviolability of UN premises. Albin Kurti’s blatant disregard for generally accepted international norms, including the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, speaks of him as incapable of civilized behavior.
And this is not the first such case. The Kosovo Albanians involved in the detention of UNMIK staff member Mikhail Krasnoshchekov on 28 May 2019 and the infliction of grievous bodily harm on him have still not been brought to justice. Another Russian member of UNMIK, Andrey Antonov, was declared “persona non grata” on December 31, 2021, by an unlawful decision of the Kosovo “authorities”. Of course Ms. Osmani failed to raise this in her statement earlier today.
Mme. President,
The central role of the United Nations in the Kosovo settlement must not be called into question. That is why the activities of UNMIK are still in great demand, given that its human and financial potential is retained. The search for a solution on Kosovo must be in line with Security Council resolution 1244, acceptable to Belgrade and ultimately approved by the Security Council.
If the actions of the Kosovo Albanians and their Western patrons are not stopped, if we do not force them to respect international law and seek compromise with Belgrade, the decades-old conflicts in the Balkans could escalate to an acute phase. All the conditions for this “perfect storm” are being created now right before our eyes by Western countries and their proxies, both in the Serb-Kosovo and Bosnian contexts. We call on all members of the United Nations to take a responsible and principled position and not to encourage them in this.
Thank you.