Abbott Sava Janjic today on FB reacted to the Belgrade’s plan for the protection of sacred sites in Kosovo saying that there is nothing new in this plan.
Janjic wrote that ”Belgrade’s glorious plan on protection of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) holy shrines in KiM, published today in the media, is nothing new, but a repetition of what Kostunica’s government with the SOC in 2007 agreed with Albanians and Ahtisaari, and which already is included in Kosovo law on protected zones.”
Janjic adds that the law is largely ignored on the ground and that more effective protection is required. He says that the SOC several times has asked the current authorities of Serbia to discuss the protection of shrines within the technical dialogue led in Brussels.
”Belgrade, for unknown reasons, has never included the SPC in the discussion or placed this topic at the negotiating table”. As an indicator Janjic states the text of the “Brussels Agreement”, posted on the website of the Government of Serbia.
He states that it is incomprehensible to treat the question of the greatest holy sites for the Serbian people without the involvement of the SOC, and only through media statements or newspaper articles, which again recycle the plan of Kostunica’s government and the Ahtisaari plan, which proved as non-functional because of the unwillingness of the Kosovo side to respect its own laws.
Abbot Sava Janjic explains further that in accordance with the decision of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church the protection of the holy sites and people can be part of only ”technical rather than a ‘status dialogue”’.
Therefore, Janjic says ”the SOC cannot be conditioned to support the Serbia’s anti-constitutional plan on the ethnic-territorial division of KiM. Because then any protection of the sanctuaries would be practically impossible because our most important sanctuaries by the scenario of division would be in the territory officially recognized by Serbia as “the Republic of Kosovo”, or worse in the territory of Greater Albania.”
At the end, Janjic states ”we sincerely remain in the hope that the Government of Serbia will respond more responsibly to this problem and be resolved exclusively within the framework of UNSCR 1244. If anyone is interested in this matter, then it is certainly our Church, which does not see its future without the adequate protection and survival of its people both north and south of the Ibar”.
