Kosovo Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla condemned Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s speech at the UN General Assembly, calling his claims a distortion of history.
“As the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora of the Republic of Kosovo, I strongly condemn and reject entirely as untruths and attempt to distort history the statements concerning the Republic of Kosovo, made by the President of Serbia in his presentation before the UN General Assembly where he, among other things, sees the origins of the Russian aggression on Ukraine in the independence of Kosovo, and shamelessly claims that in 2008 what happened to Serbia is happening to Ukraine today.
Vucic said in his speech that the break up of Serbia is ongoing and blamed the 19 countries involved in the 1999 military campaign for the declaration of independence of Kosovo which he said was a brutal violation of the UN Charter.
Gervalla said in her reaction that the declaration of independence was not a violation of the UN Charter or international law.
“With this slander and attempts to distort history, the President of Serbia has severely abused the UN General Assembly,” she said and accused Vucic of violating an agreement on the path to normalization which said that Serbia should not oppose Kosovo’s membership in international organizations.
“Some people are horrified by my speech and some are thrilled but no one can dispute the facts… We Serbs are not always rational but in any case I spoke from the heart and the mind. I told the truth and spoke for the sake of history,” Vucic told reporters in New York commenting criticism of his speech at the UN General Assembly.
The Kosovo Foreign Minister also accused Belgrade and Vucic of blocking the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue. According to her, the Serbian President continues to hold the entire Western Balkan region hostage, including the Serbian people.
“We call on the international community, especially the EU and the US to condemn the language used by the President of Serbia at the UN, and to remind him of the obligations he made with the agreement expressed in Brussels and Ohrid,” she said.
