Kosovo analyst appalled Serbian minister remains in office after ethnic cleansing remarks

“She said three times that she would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo, which takes us back to the dark nineties and the hell of the Kosovo conflict and war. I am appalled that this person is still a minister in the Serbian Government or, more precisely, that she hasn't been dismissed. This suggests that this kind of rhetoric has the support of the current Serbian authorities,” Deda said.

He argued that such statements make any normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo nearly impossible.

“As long as we are legitimizing the desire for ethnic cleansing, which took place in 1998 and 1999, I don’t see how we can achieve even a basic level of normalcy between Kosovo and Serbia,” he noted.

According to Deda, the problem is not just the Serbian minister’s statement, but the total lack of reaction from the Serbian Government.

“It is far too easy to drag those of us living here back to that era. There were sharp reactions, but many were waiting to see how the Serbian Government would respond. They did nothing; they remained silent. That tells us exactly where we stand. It only reinforces the view that it is difficult to reach any agreement - let alone a shared vision for a Western Balkans based on mutual respect - with a Serbia led by figures from the 1990s,” Deda said.

In a recent interview with the pro-government Kurir TV, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Snezana Paunovic said she would have carried out ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1998 if she had been in Milosevic’s shoes.

The statement was met with fierce condemnation from sections of the Serbian public and the wider region, but drew no criticism from top state officials.

Following the backlash, the minister issued an apology - not to the public, but to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Djuro Macut, expressing regret that they were “being called out through no fault of their own.”

Despite the record of her comments, Paunovic later claimed that a seven-second clip from her interview had been “maliciously taken out of context” to frame her as an advocate for ethnic cleansing.