A regular UN Security Council session on Kosovo will be held on Monday in New York. Serbia is represented by Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic.
The session will discuss the UN secretary-general’s report on the work of the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, covering the period from January 17 to April 15.
”In his presentation, Dacic will give a review of the report, i.e., he will outline our assessment of the current situation in Kosovo and Metohija and the functioning of UNMIK”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his quarterly report on Kosovo that he was worried about signs of deteriorating relations between Belgrade and Pristina, especially after the arrest of the director of the Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric. Guterres urged the parties to avoid provocative actions and inflammatory statements.
“The dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, with the mediation of the EU, has, as it seems, fallen into a new deadlock… I appeal on both sides to give a new impetus to the dialogue in order to implement all the agreements reached so far,” Guterres said.
Guterres warned that the behaviour of the Kosovo police during the arrest of Djuric, when several people were injured, was “a cause for concern” and called for “a detailed investigation” of the event, stating that “corrective measures” are necessary related to violations of human rights.
The UN chief expressed concern over the slowness of the investigation into the murder of one of the leaders of Serbs from north of Kosovo, Oliver Ivanovic, stating that “mutual suspicions and feeling of lack of security are an obstacle in building trust among communities in Kosovo.”
Guterres, at the same time, welcomed the decision of the Kosovo Assembly to ratify the agreement on demarcation with Montenegro, warning about obstructions by some members of the Assembly.
He also noted that in the last three months, only three non-Albanians returned to Kosovo.
The part of the report covering the activities of the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, states that investigators of the Specialist Chambers for crimes committed during the conflict by members of the KLA continued investigations into allegations related to “inhuman treatment and illegal trafficking in human organs.” The report, however, provides no new details about the course of the investigation or the start of trials before the court, RTS is stressing in its report.
Previous UN Security Council on Kosovo mostly passed in harsh debates about the future format of these meetings, with Britain, the United States and France arguing that the four sessions held each year should be reduced to two.
