Selaković: For us, dialogue has no alternative and we must fight for our people in Kosovo and Metohija

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Nikola Selaković, said that today's conversation in Brussels was extremely difficult and that the proposals made by the Prime Minister of the provisional institutions of self-government in Pristina, Albin Kurti, had no points of contact with what had been discussed so far.

In a statement for TV Prva, Selaković pointed out that Kurti manifested the absence of any desire to reach an agreement, and that he even tried to make many agreements reached so far meaningless.

According to him, the only agreement reached was for the delegations to meet again at this level by the end of July, and that in the meantime, technical teams would discuss the issue of missing persons.

Selaković said that Miroslav Lajčák and Josep Borrell showed constructiveness and a desire for the dialogue to succeed, which is what Belgrade wants as well.

"The whole process in which we participate is normalization, we want to normalize people's lives and we want to preserve peace and stability in every possible way, to avoid any kind of incidents and that which can endanger the survival of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija, which can endanger the survival of our shrines. With that desire, we started this process of dialogue, which has been painstakingly conducted for ten years and which has had some results. Today, we could essentially hear that the current representatives of Pristina are not interested in these results and that what their side committed to and their parliament ratified, does not exist for them", Selaković pointed out.

The head of Serbian diplomacy said that for Belgrade, normalization represents dialogue and solving problems in direct conversation, while respecting the position that what was agreed upon must be fulfilled, which Borrell and Lajčák reminded the representatives of Pristina several times today.

Selaković also said that he was very proud of the way in which President Aleksandar Vučić fought, emphasizing that it is very difficult to sit on the Brussels chair and allow someone to provoke you without reacting to every provocation.

"Whatever the topic, they always ask when we will recognize their independence, and then the president said at one point – we will not recognize it. It is our southern province and our territory, and we want to talk about people's rights and how to overcome some topics that should be considered achievements of civilization – to find the missing persons, so that their loved ones may bury them properly", Selaković pointed out.

He added that at the end of the conversation, President Vučić appealed to Pristina not to endanger peace and stability, to which Kurti said "you are talking about peace and stability, and you held a liturgy in Milošević's church the other day".

"Let me just remind you, since the beginning of this year, 13 Orthodox Serbian shrines, churches or monasteries have been attacked, desecrated, looted or burned on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, and we have not seen any great reaction from the Western world to that. Someone told us today that the liturgies in, as they say, Milošević's church in Pristina are a provocation. Are we talking about the same Pristina, where 40,000 Serbs lived until 22 years ago, and today there are 40 of them", said Selaković.

The Minister said that Belgrade must continue with negotiations, and that there is nothing more important for us than these talks.

Selaković also emphasized that we will fight to realize the agreement on the Community of Serbian Municipalities, reminding that in less than three weeks it will be 3,000 days since that agreement was reached.

"For us, dialogue is something that has no alternative and something we have to fight for in order to save our people in Kosovo and Metohija, in order to defend our state and national interests, as President Vučić did today", Selaković concluded.