"Pen is not weapon Haradinaj uses best" (Prva TV, B92)
Commenting on Ramush Haradinaj's op-ed in the Washington Post, Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dacic said the text was written by someone else because "pen is not his weapon."
The Kosovo prime minister wrote the article published in the US daily, where he presented a series of accusations against Serbia, and claimed that the Serbian President, with Russia's support, was offering Kosovo independence in exchange for a part of its territory.
Asked how Haradinaj came up with that claim, Dacic, the Serbian Foreign Minister and first deputy PM said that it was "above all a great surprise that the text has been published at all, because the pen is not the weapon he uses."
"Somebody wrote it for him," Dacic told Prva TV early on Thursday.
"He led the KLA ("Kosovo Liberation Army") and murdered people, he is free because of lack of living witnesses that he has in the meantime killed. Now he's making up reasons to justify the situation that he is in, and that they have fallen into the quicksand, and the more time passes, the more statements they make, the deeper they sink," he said.
Asked to comment on the interview Kosovo President Hashim Thaci gave to US media that there is no agreement between Serbia and Kosovo without defining the borders, Dacic noted there is one dilemma present – whether Thaci and Haradinaj are in conflict indeed or they are just playing a game.
There is information that (Thaci’s people) convinced Haradinaj to impose 100 percent taxes, while he allegedly wanted an increase by 30 percent, Dacic said, adding that Serbia does not want the situation to deteriorate.
Speaking about today’s meeting of Srpska Lista representatives with the Serbia President, but also about next Serbia’s steps Dacic said “We are waiting to see how long this therapy will last. The diagnosis is severe, and it takes time for medicaments to produce an effect. It is hardly to expect they would easily change that decision. In fact, they are blocking the door with their feet, aiming to gain new political space, this is the point from where we want to start now, taxes are 100 percent now,” Serbian Foreign Minister Dacic said.
“This is bluffing, and it won’t go that way,” Dacic explained and added: “If they cannot discipline Pristina, what else we have to talk about?”