(2 Feb 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Belgrade - 2 February 2024
1. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic arriving at news conference
2. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian President:
“The Republic of Serbia will submit a request for the holding of a special session of the Security Council of the United Nations because we know this isn’t the end, and on Monday, our representative with the UN will submit a request according to the things I have told you.”
3. Wide of Vucic speaking during news conference
4. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian President:
“Unfortunately, Albin Kurti (Kosovo’s Prime Minister) made that decision out of his own accord, with the following goal in mind. That goal is, and the most important part of what I’ll be talking about today, is the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian populace from the entire territory of Kosovo.”
5. Vucic and members of media at news conference
6. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian President:
“I believe that our Western partners will keep their word and try to push for the elementary rights of the Serbian populace. I have had a meeting with them, and we don’t have any other choice but to hope and to believe what we’ve been told.”
7. Wide of Vucic during news conference
8. Vucic leaving news conference
STORYLINE:
Serbia will seek an urgent session of the UN Security Council to discuss the escalation of crisis in its former province of Kosovo where the government decided to ban the use of the Serbian dinar and introduce the Euro currency in the areas where minority Serbs live, the Serbian president said Friday.
“The Republic of Serbia will submit a request for the holding of a special session of the Security Council of the United Nations because we know this isn’t the end, and on Monday, our representative with the UN will submit a request according to the things I have told you,” Serbian populist President Aleksandar Vucic said at a news conference on Friday.
On Thursday, Kosovo’s government put into effect the rule that bans banks and other financial institutions in the Serb-populated areas from using dinar in local transactions. Kosovo’s Central Bank had issued the new rules last summer.
Most of Kosovo uses the euro, even though the country isn’t part of the EU. But parts of Kosovo’s north, populated mostly by ethnic Serbs, continue to use the dinar. Many rely on the government of Serbia for financial support, often delivered in dinars in cash.
Vucic told reporters that the measure is intended to “ethnically cleanse” the Serbs from northern Kosovo.
“Unfortunately, Albin Kurti (Kosovo’s prime minister) made that decision out of his own accord, with the following goal in mind. That goal is, and the most important part of what I’ll be talking about today, is the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian populace from the entire territory of Kosovo,” Vucic said.
He said that Serbia will ignore the currency measure that it will find a way so that Kosovo Serbs continue to receive their pensions and salaries from Serbia.
Serbian forces fought a 1998-99 war with ethnic Albanian separatists in what was then the province of Kosovo. About 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, died until a 78-day NATO bombing campaign pushed Serbian forces away.
Kosovo eventually declared independence in 2008, but the government in Belgrade doesn’t recognise its neighbour as a separate country.
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