NEW YORK, Aug 19 (Hina/STA) - U.N. Security Council member states held an extraordinary session on the Kosovo situation on Monday at which they slammed and expressed regret over last week's killing of two Serb teenagers in the Pec
area. The session had been convened at Serbia and Montenegro's request.
NEW YORK, Aug 19 (Hina/STA) - U.N. Security Council member states
held an extraordinary session on the Kosovo situation on Monday at
which they slammed and expressed regret over last week's killing of
two Serb teenagers in the Pec area. The session had been convened at
Serbia and Montenegro's request. #L#
A statement read out after the session by the Security Council
chairman, Syrian Ambassador Mihail Wehbe, expressed deep concern
about the fact that such tragic events happened a full four years
after the end of the Kosovo war.
Addressing the session, Serbia's deputy prime minister in charge of
Kosovo, Nebojsa Covic, said Belgrade was determined to continue
cooperating with the international community but warned about the
danger of fascism and the establishment of an Albanian parastate in
Kosovo.
All speakers at the session were resolute in condemning last week's
attack on the Serb teenagers, two of which were killed while four
were wounded as they were swimming in the river near their home
village of Gorazdevac. The speakers stressed the building of a
multiethnic Kosovo remained the international community's goal.
U.S. representative James Cunningham said building a multiethnic
society would be the best homage to last week's victims.
British Ambassador Emyr Jones Perry said Covic's accusations that
the U.N. Mission in Kosovo and NATO's peacekeepers there were
ineffective were baseless and unfair. He said the mutual
accusations between Pristina and Belgrade were not conducive to the
normalisation of relations.
Russian representative Genadi Gatilov said the terrorist attack on
the Serb youths could not be justified, and that the U.N. Mission
must be more active in preventing interethnic intolerance.
In his address, Covic said the youths were attacked only because
they were Serbs and that the attack was a message to all Serbs to
leave Kosovo as well as that a multiethnic Kosovo did not have a
future.
He also complained that only Serbs were being brought before the
Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia while most
Albanians in Kosovo watched the violence against Serbs with their
hands crossed.
The Serbian deputy PM urged taking resolute steps to fulfil the
Security Council's Resolution 1244, including the return of
refugees and guarantees for safety and freedom of movement.
He said Albanians had killed 1,201 Serbs and demolished 10
monasteries and churches from the 14th century since the war in
Kosovo ended in 1999.
"Unless it eliminates the instability, the international community
will be historically responsible for the rise of fascism in one part
of Europe and for the creation of a monoethnic Albanian parastate in
a place which has been legally recognised as part of Serbia and
Montenegro," he said.
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