Albanian Language Media:

• President’s chief of staff refutes report about Russian spotted in Prishtina (media)
• Police: The two Russian nationals left Kosovo on October 23 (media)
• Foreign Minister Gervalla reports to parliamentary committee (media)
• Defense Minister: Our plan is for a professional army (media)
• Hoxhaj slams government for not taking part in COP26 (media)
• Think tank publishes report tackling spread of fake news during pandemic (media)
• Health Minister and COMKFOR call for vaccination against COVID-19 (media)
• COVID-19: 21 new cases, no deaths (media)

Serbian Language Media:

• Covid-19: 59 new cases registered in Serbian areas (KoSSev)
• Raska-Prizren Diocese expects competent institutions to fully implement Constitutional Court ruling (KoSSev, media)
• PM Brnabic: 114 attacks on Serbs in Kosovo this year, the most since 2008 (Kosovo Online, Tanjug)
• Trajkovic criticise Kurti’s non-execution of the Constitutional Court decision on the Visoki Decani (Kosovo Online)
• Defendants in Oliver Ivanovic’s case ask for trial proceedings to accelerate (Politika)
• Selakovic: Excellent cooperation of Serbia and Greece, grateful for support (Kosovo-online)
• Demetriou: Cyprus will never recognize Kosovo’s unilaterally declared independence (NMagazin, Beta)

Albanian Language Media  

President’s chief of staff refutes report about Russian spotted in Prishtina (media)

Blerim Vela, Chief of Staff for Kosovo President Office Vjosa Osmani, reacted this morning to Monday’s media reports that one of the two Russian nationals, who were declared personae non grata by President Osmani, was spotted in downtown Prishtina. Vela said in his reaction: “Misinformation: the person seen in the photo is the driver of the Russian Liaison Office in Kosovo and not Denis Vengerskii. The officials of the Russian Liaison Office left the territory of the Republic of Kosovo within 24 hours after they were declared personae non grata.”

Police: The two Russian nationals left Kosovo on October 23 (media)

Kosovo Police issued a statement today refuting Monday’s media reports that one of the two Russian nationals, who were declared personae non grata by President Vjosa Osmani, was spotted in downtown Prishtina on Monday.

The statement notes: 

Kosovo Police, for the sake of right information of the public, through this official statement, refutes articles and publications in some TV and print media in Kosovo and Albania, which carried exclusive headlines and videos ‘Russian declared non-grata by Kosovo seen in downtown Prishtina’.

This information is not true, and Police explains that:

The two persons, Alexey Krivosheev and Denis Vengerskii, Russian nationals, were declared personae non grata by Kosovo state institutions on 22.10.2021, and based on the official information of Kosovo Police recorded at the border system, the same persons left the territory of the Republic of Kosovo on 23.10.2021 (at 14:46 and 14:50) through the Merdare border crossing point.

It is worth noting that the same persons, since 23.10.2021, did not enter the Republic of Kosovo, and the person whose photo was published in the media, is another person (V.L) who is known to Kosovo security institutions as a staff member of the Russian office in Kosovo.

Kosovo Police will continue its engagement and commitment to the implementation of the laws and the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, in the interest of safeguarding public order and security in the country.

Foreign Minister Gervalla reports to parliamentary committee (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Donika Gervalla, said in her report to the Kosovo Assembly Committee for European Integration today that Kosovo needs to convince some EU member states for visa liberalisation for Kosovo citizens by proving that the legal system is getting stronger. She however said that she cannot give a date when visa liberalisation could happen. 

Gervalla said that the delays in the process are unfair and unexplainable. “If it was concluded that the previous governments met the criteria for visa liberalisation, then why are there delays in the process. There are some member states that are still skeptical. We need to identify the factors. Some member states tell us that the legal system must be strengthened, and we need to convince them with concrete results. Some others are refusing because of their domestic developments. There is some progress with some of these member states. I will not mention any dates because we are aware of the real obstacles,” she added.

Gervalla said that the Association of Serb-majority municipalities and the Open Balkan initiative are both damaging initiatives for Kosovo and that the Association will not be implemented. “Decisions in the past were made with exceptional ease. We have analyzed the Open Balkan and the Association [of Serb-majority municipalities] and they are damaging. We are working to prove to others too that they are damaging. The Association would create another Bosnia in Kosovo. We don’t want to have a paralyzed state like Bosnia. We don’t have the luxury of implementing detrimental agreements,” she said.

Gervalla also said that state authorities were working to strengthen Kosovo’s international image. “We are working on how to approach the five non-recognizing member states,” she said.

Defense Minister: Our plan is for a professional army (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Defense, Armend Mehaj, said today that there is a plan for a professional Army of Kosovo. “I believe it is the dream of every citizen of Kosovo for us to have a genuine army and to have an opportunity for every individual to serve in the army. The plan we have is for a professional army and we are in coordination with our partners to see at what stage in the future we can have a mandatory service. We need to see the concrete plans of other countries too, for example the Baltic states which have gone through the same phases of threats from Russia, as the threats that we face from Serbia. It is important to note that every action that we undertake is in coordination with the United States of America,” Mehaj said in his report to the Kosovo Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mehaj said there is great interest among youths in Kosovo to become soldiers of the Kosovo Army. He said there were around 6,000 applications for 400 vacancies. He said the recruitment of new soldiers is done in line with the plan coordinated with Kosovo’s allies. 

Mehaj also said there is continuous coordination with Kosovo’s international partners to further advance the army and avoid possible mistakes in the process. “I am totally committed to the Army and the Ministry of Defence. Our activities are not stopping. The train is on the move and it will not stop. I call on all of you to support us because this is irreversible,” Mehaj told the committee members. 

Hoxhaj slams government for not taking part in COP26 (media)

Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) senior member and former Kosovo Foreign Minister, Enver Hoxhaj, slammed the Kosovo Government today for not taking part in the UN Climate Change Conference which is being held in Glasgow.

“No one from Kosovo is there! No one from the Kosovo Government made an official request to participate there! Is there an activist from this field, a professional or a reporter?!,” Hoxhaj argued. “This Summit would have been a good opportunity to meet world leaders, to tell them that this topic is important for Kosovo too, to secure support for this topic, and also for other topics related to Kosovo! Because there are not talks only about the climate there, but it is a good platform for other topics too!”

Think tank publishes report tackling spread of fake news during pandemic (media)

The Prishtina-based Democracy Plus (D+) think tank, funded by the EU, published a report tackling the spread of fake news during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Read the report in the following link:

https://dplus.org/en/fake-news-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-its-impact-in-kosovo/

Health Minister and COMKFOR call for vaccination against COVID-19 (media)

Kosovo’s acting Minister of Health, Dafina Gexha-Bunjaku, hosted in a meeting today the new commander of KFOR peacekeeping troops, Major General Ferenc Kajari, thanking him for the continuous role and assistance of KFOR to the communities in Kosovo and their assistance to the Ministry of Health and other health institutions during the coronavirus pandemic. Minister Gexha and COMKFOR Kajari also called for vaccination against COVID-19 and said that the implementation of preventive measures is crucial for protecting public health.

COVID-19: 21 new cases, no deaths (media)

21 new COVID-19 cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo. 10 persons recovered from the virus during this time.

There are 441 active cases with COVID-19 in Kosovo.

Serbian Language Media

Covid-19: 59 new cases registered in Serbian areas (KoSSev)

Out of 161 tested samples in the Serb-populated areas 59 were positive for Covid-19, Crisis Committee of Mitrovica North announced today, KoSSev portal reports.

The new cases were registered as follows: 20 in Leposavic, 12 in Mitrovica North, ten each in Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Gracanica, six in Strpce, two in Gnjilane, and one each in Priluzje and Prizren.

Currently there are 396 active cases in the Serbian areas in Kosovo. 

Raska-Prizren Diocese expects competent institutions to fully implement Constitutional Court ruling (KoSSev, media)

“The Diocese of Raska and Prizren, based in Gracanica, confirmed that the Serbian Orthodox Church expects the competent institutions to fully implement the ruling of the Kosovo Constitutional Court from 2016, which confirmed the ownership of the monastery Visoki Decani over 24 hectares of surrounding land and forest”, KoSSev portal reports.

The Diocese recalled that the ruling of the Constitutional Court is final and irrevocable and its non-execution only further demonstrates that Visoki Decani Monastery is legally endangered.

“It was the reason why, among other things, Visoki Decani was placed on the list of 7 most endangered cultural and historical sites in Europe by the prestigious international organization Europa Nostra,” the Diocese wrote.

The Diocese also welcomed international appeals for the court’s ruling to be implemented and for the church land to be registered in the cadastre.

The dispute over the monastery land

After 16 years of dispute over the ownership of the monastery land in the municipality of Decani, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo reached a decision in May 2016 to confirm the previous decision of the Supreme Court in 2012 on the confirmation of Visoki Decani monastery’s ownership rights of the 24 hectares of land.

The decision caused conflicting reactions in Kosovo society, with the harshest criticism arriving from the municipal leadership, which still refuses to implement the court’s decision and to register the monastery’s ownership of the land in the cadastre, the portal further writes.

In recent years, on the anniversary of the 2016 decision of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, international officials have appealed to the Kosovo authorities to implement this decision.

The Kosovo Constitutional Court itself confirmed in September that the decision has yet to be implemented.

700 ha of land taken from the monastery in 1946

Seven hundred hectares of land were seized from the Visoki Decani Monastery in 1946. However, the state of Serbia returned 24 hectares to the monastery in 1997. The monastery, when combined with the twenty hectares it previously owned, then owned 55 hectares of land.

This return of 24 hectares was regularly recorded in the cadastre, but since 1999, the local Kosovo authorities do not recognize that this land belongs to the monastery.

Although the monastery continues to use the land, municipal authorities are beginning to challenge the ownership of the monasteries over these 24 hectares.

PM Brnabic: 114 attacks on Serbs in Kosovo this year, the most since 2008 (Kosovo Online, Tanjug)

The Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabic said today that there have been 114 attacks on Serbs in Kosovo since the beginning of this year and pointed out that this was the largest number of attacks since 2008, reported Kosovo Online, citing Tanjug. 

At the press conference, Brnabic presented this year results of the cabinet, reminding of, as she said, ”terrible provocations of Kosovo institutions that took place in the north of Kosovo in September and October”, and that her most difficult moment this year was October 13 when Serbs were shot at in Kosovo, cited portal Kosovo Online.

“Only with the calm and smart policy of President Aleksandar Vucic, we managed to preserve peace and stability,” the Prime Minister Brnabic said. 

She emphasized that it is extremely important that, regardless of all challenges and provocations, the unity of Serbs in Kosovo was preserved.

Trajkovic criticise Kurti’s non-execution of the Constitutional Court decision on the Visoki Decani (Kosovo Online)

President of the European Movement of Kosovo, Rada Trajkovic, in her reply to the post of Visoki Decani Monastery on Twitter, criticized the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, for the non-implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decision on the ownership of Visoki Decani Monastery. She wrote in her reply: 

“Allegedly to strengthen the rule of law, Kurti risked ethnic conflict in the north to stop a few petty smugglers. Yet when it comes to implementing the decision of KS’s own constitutional court re: @DecaniMonastery, his commitment to the RoL wavers. Inconsistency & bad example!” Trajkovic tweeted yesterday.

Defendants in Oliver Ivanovic’s case ask for trial proceedings to accelerate (Politika)

After waiting for almost three months, the trial for the murder of Civic Initiative Freedom, Democracy, Justice leader Oliver Ivanovic  is scheduled to continue on November 22 and 24 in the Basic Court in Pristina, Belgrade-based Politika daily reports. The prosecution indicted six Serbs from Mitrovica North over involvement in Ivanovic’s murder.  

Mahmut Halimi, a defense lawyer of Marko Rosic (25) arrested on November 23, 2018, told the daily this hearing was supposed to last three days, but the procedure was shortened with the explanation that the prosecutor has another case. The trial is taking place according to the third version of the indictment, for which the defence believes it has only been “cosmetically changed”, and due to the delay in this trial, the detention of some of the accused have been extended by Pristina institution for almost three years.

“We hope the trial will begin and there will be no delays. The prosecutor proposed more than 50 witnesses, of which as many as 70 to 80 percent have nothing to do with our case but have a political connotation. Witnesses from Decani, Leposavic and other places will appear. And the prosecutor suggested that their statements are to be read. However, this is not possible in such cases at the main trial. The witness must be brought to court because it is necessary in the evidentiary procedure. We will ask for the reduction of witnesses who come from the political milieu”, Halimi pointed out.

He further clarified that his client Marko Rosic “will not have witnesses, because he is the truth himself”. “Marko Rosic is nowhere to be found on the surveillance camera footage provided to us by the prosecution. He was not seen six months prior to the day when Ivanovic was killed. It was not in Marko’s interest to follow Ivanovic, as the cameras show, and after all, the entire Mitrovica knew when Ivanovic was going to work and when he was returning. There is no evidence to confirm the indictment accusing him of being in direct contact with the perpetrators”, Halimi said.

According to Halimi, brother of Oliver Ivanovic, Miroslav, also said that “a piece of paper that was subsequently placed inside the wallet of the murdered Ivanovic, which allegedly has the registration number of the car driven by Rosic, was not written in his brother’s handwriting”, adding that “that piece of paper was not found during the investigation”.

Faruk Korenica, defense lawyer of Nedeljko Spasojevic, another defendant in this case told Politika that it is very important for Milena Popovic wife of late Oliver Ivanovic to take the stand at the trial “as a woman who spent years with Oliver Ivanovic and who knew his movements and actions”.

“She knew who was threatening him and why. It is very important that she appears, that she is heard, because otherwise the trial may be postponed. After all, the absence of his brother Miroslav Ivanovic can lead to a delay”, Korenica said.

Milena Popovic told Politika that she was ready to appear on September 1 this year in Priština, but that “before the departure for Pristina, she was told the trial was postponed for technical reasons”.

 “I will be in the courtroom on November 22, regardless of whether I will receive a summons or not. After four years, it is high time to move forward, but also to end the procedure. But from what I saw, I was not announced as a witness. Regardless of that, I will be there”, she said.

Selakovic: Excellent cooperation of Serbia and Greece, grateful for support (Kosovo-online)

Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Nikola Selakovic met in Athens with President of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou and thanked her for the support Greece extends to Serbia, Kosovo-online portal reports.

Traditionally close and good historic relations, similar mentality and spiritual closeness of our two peoples have been crowned by the Agreement on Strategic Partnership in 2019, Minister Selakovic said. He added brotherly Greek people can always count on the help of the Serbian people.

“Greek support is present regarding the two issues, particularly important for us, one is support on the matter of crucial importance and it is the support regarding Kosovo and Metohija issue, and Serbia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, and we express hope this support will continue”, Selakovic said.

The support on the second issue, he added, relates to Serbia’s membership to the EU.

Demetriou: Cyprus will never recognize Kosovo’s unilaterally declared independence (NMagazin, Beta)

The President of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus, Annita Demetriou stated today in the Serbian Parliament that Cyprus will never recognize the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo, she supported Serbia’s European path and thanked Serbia’s support to her country.

“I take this opportunity to confirm the position of the authorities and the firm confirmation of the full respect of the Republic of Cyprus for the sovereign rights and territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia. The historical and clear position of Cyprus is not to recognize Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, and the legal basis for resolving this issue remains Resolution 1244 (UN Security Council),” said Demitriou. 

She added that more than 47 years after the military invasion and Turkish occupation, the Cypriot people are fighting for the unification of the country, for the liberation and return of refugees.

“We relentlessly repeat that our goal is to reach a lasting solution based on international law and relevant UN resolutions … Our efforts are contrary to the intransigence and expansion of Turkey, whose provocation is growing dangerously not only to the detriment of Cyprus and Greece, but also the wider region. The Turkish side openly demands a two-state solution in Cyprus in violation of UN resolutions. We will never listen to such unacceptable views,” said Demetriou.