LOCAL PRESS

 

Vucic: Refugee crisis has only been postponed, not solved (Tanjug/RTS)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has stated that the refugee crisis had only been postponed, not solved. “This is the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. It has shaken the foundations of the EU and showed that EU countries are motivated by selfishness rather than solidarity,” Vucic said at a conference titled “Asylum and Migration System: Refugee Crisis and Reform Processes”, which is under way in Belgrade. “The crisis had showed how all the other countries, which were not part of the EU, treated refugees, how the rule of law was followed and how principles were respected. Serbia will do everything it can to be part of a comprehensive solution, if any be there. If no common European solution is found, we will behave as people and respect the principles of solidarity,” said Vucic. Vucic pointed out that 651,000 migrants had entered Serbia the year before, and 100,000 more people had entered the country since the beginning of the current year, and they had all been registered and provided accommodation, healthcare services and protection.

The Serbian Prime Minister is confident that the EU path is the best path for Serbia because being an open democratic society with the rule of law is a strategic orientation. Speaking at a conference on the migrant crisis, Vucic said that he knows very well that this way of thinking is not popular in Serbia at all due to some other things, as well as some decisions by the ICTY. The question also remains what the EU will be like when Serbia arrives at its door, Vucic said. “What condition the EU will be in at that time is a question for them. For us, it is important that we are an orderly country. Anything else would lead Serbia to a demise that would not only be an economic one. Nevertheless, I will once again come out and say that I see the path leading to the EU as the best, strategic path for Serbia, that our country should be that type of society, and develop democracy as part of the political system and have rule of law. It is up to us to do the job by 2020 and then let the EU say what it thinks about it,” Vucic said.
Vucic to travel to Bosnia, meet with Croat presidency member (Tanjug/B92)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic announced on Wednesday he will travel to Mostar on 12 April. He told a press conference in Belgrade he will meet with Dragan Covic, the Croat member of the B&H Presidency. He added he was willing to talk to everyone else, as well.

Vucic made the statement when asked to comment on the latest misunderstanding between Belgrade and Sarajevo, after some analysts put his "exchange of views" with the Bosniak member of the Presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, in the context of Serbia's upcoming parliamentary elections. “I am going to Mostar to represent Serbia - above all the Serbian economy,” Vucic said, and, commenting on analysts and analyses, said he saw no need to sharpen his rhetoric for the sake of election results. He said Serbia’s position on B&H had not changed, as Serbia continues to respect the territorial integrity of that country, but will at the same time not allow anyone to endanger the RS.  “Serbia hasn’t changed. Its policy will not be aggressive but one of peace and reconciliation, rather than the revenge against another nation. And I’m going to Mostar, I’m guessing it will be interesting,” Vucic said. Commenting on Izetbegovic’s announcement of a revision of the genocide lawsuit against Serbia in the wake of Hague Tribunal’s ruling in the trial of Radovan Karadzic, Vucic noted that almost nobody in the B&H Presidency nor in the world supports this idea, adding, however, that he personally sensed that the thing was moving in that direction. In this context, he mentioned a newspaper that had printed 60 pages against Karadzic, of which at least 15 were against the RS. Expanding on his point of having no intention of changing Serbia’s policy of peace that looks to the future, the prime minister said he was ready to stand in front of the right-wingers and say, don’t talk nonsense - because the easiest thing to do is to pander to the people, whine against somebody, which has become a national sport in Serbia, but also in the Balkans. “Everything I’ve been saying is rational and makes sense, but I am satisfied that everyone in the world understands how important it is for the circumstances in the Balkans to change, rather than to be going back to the past with lawsuits,” he said. Commenting on the Hague Tribunal’s verdict in the case against Vojislav Seselj, set to be announced on Thursday, Vucic said it will be of no consequence when it comes to the country’s stability.

 

Djuric: UNMIK’s role irreplaceable (Tanjug)

The United Nations is the most significant partner for Serbia and the role of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is irreplaceable, the Head of the government Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric said Wednesday during a meeting with Simona-Mirela Miculescu, Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Office in Belgrade. Djuric briefed Miculescu on the course of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, also touching upon the significance of the dialogue for Serbia’s European integration, the Office for Kosovo and Metohija said in a statement. During the meeting, particular attention was devoted to the position of and problems faced by Kosovo Serbs, the statement also said.

 

Djuric: Brussels to resolve problem with blockade of trucks (RTS)

The Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric told the morning news of Radio and Television of Serbia that Vucic will be travelling to Kosovo on 3 April, which will be strong support in difficult and unstable times. Djuric says that Vucic will meet with the Trepca miners in Leposavic and that he will also visit Kosovska Mitrovica.  Djuric has said that Serbia is considering introducing reciprocal measures for trucks from Kosovo. He points out that nobody was preventing anybody’s trucks, with any kind of cargo to enter Serbia proper and what Pristina has been doing has nothing to do with the economy and rational behavior. “We will not be quietly waiting for our interests to be trampled on. But I think there is still small room to solve this thing and I expect good news during the day,” he said. He called on representatives of Kosovo to stop the blockade and on the international community to react to Pristina’s behavior. “Pristina has crossed all boundaries and entered the red zone of unacceptable behavior. This has nothing to do with normal relation and respect of anybody’s interest. I am no longer asking Pristina, I’m asking international representatives how they can tolerate this,” said Djuric.

 

Miscevic: EU not asking Serbia to recognize Kosovo (B92)

The Head of the Serbian negotiating team with the EU Tanja Miscevic has said that the EU was not and could not ask Serbia to recognize the independence of Kosovo, and neither could individual EU member states. “As long as all EU member states do not recognize

Kosovo's independence, we cannot be asked to do so either,” Miscevic said in a televised interview with TVB92. Miscevic explained that serious work was being done on Chapter 35, covering the normalization of relations with Pristina, and that all the documents were being prepared for the opening of the key Chapters 23 and 24 during the Dutch EU presidency. She underlined that even though Croatia had refused to agree to the opening of Chapter 23, Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Miro Kovac promised that his country would assist Serbia in meeting the requirements for joining the EU.

 

Vulin: Serbian government to continue to support University in Pristina (Beta/Tanjug)

The Serbian government will continue to back the Pristina University and will not make any decisions without its input, just like it did not take decisions on Kosovo and Metohija without Serb representatives from Kosovo and Metohija, Serbian Minister of Labor Aleksandar Vulin said on 29 March. “The people who run the University have demonstrated with their expertise, knowledge and responsibility toward their state that they deserve the trust of the government and student body, and of the citizens of Kosovo and Metohija too,” Vulin said after a meeting in the University rectorate.

Vulin also said that Serbia would never recognize Kosovo as an independent state. “Serbia will respect its own Constitution, Kosovo-Metohija will never be recognized as an independent state and Serbia has not the least intention to change the policy,” Vulin told reporters, replying to a question of how Serbia would react if recognition of Kosovo was put before Serbia as a precondition for joining the EU. Vulin stressed that Kosovo is an integral part of Serbia and that Serbia respected Security Council Resolution 1244 and behaved accordingly.
EU donations enable return of 100 families to Kosovo (Beta)

The return of 100 families, around 600 people, to Kosovo and Metohija over the past two years was made possible owing to an EU donation and a project run by the ASB Workers' Samaritan Federation. At a presentation of the results of the project in Kragujevac’s Biznis Inovacioni Centar, a statement was issued on March 29 reading that, since February 2014, returning families had been awarded equipment as assistance in starting businesses and that ten returnee companies had been founded as a result. At least five returning families joined forces in applying for EUR50, 000 grants, while at least two households competed for EUR 20,000 worth of assistance.

 

Obradovic: We are waiting for decision of Higher Court (Tanjug)

Serbia’s legal representative at the ICTY Sasa Obradovic has sent a letter to the court informing them that there has been a small delay in the submission of a report on the efforts that Serbia is making in handling the request for the arrest and extradition of three members of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) charged by the tribunal with contempt of court. Obradovic said in the letter that as soon as he received information that the preliminary proceedings judge at the Higher Court in Belgrade had issued a decision in accordance with the law on cooperation with the tribunal, he would communicate them to the ICTY secretariat so that preparations for the beginning of the relevant process before the Trial Chamber could begin in time. Obradovic is sending the letter to honor the verbal order of the ICTY trial chamber of 10 February, under which Serbia is to deliver to the chamber a report on its efforts to comply with orders from January 2015 every two weeks. The orders concern the arrest and extradition of Peter Jojic, Jovo Ostojic and Vjerica Radeta, the SRS members accused of contempt of court.
Antonic: SRS subject to blackmail, it is acceptable opposition to SNS (B92)

The judgment to Vojislav Seselj will be symbolic, as new evidence that the main criminals in the region of former Yugoslavia were the Serbs, Philosophy Faculty Professor Slobodan Antonic told B92. He was released without conditions, and now he was invited to return for the judgment to be delivered. Antonic opines that the threat that he could be sent to The Hague means that the SRS is more susceptible to concessions and compromises. “When you have a leader whom you can press, not to say blackmail, then it is an opposition that is more acceptable for the government than some party or leader that do not have that kind of threat,” says Antonic.

“The judgment will not have significance as for example the judgment to Karadzic, since Karadzic’s judgment is being examined with a desire to find new moments for the revision of, let’s say, B&H’s lawsuit against Serbia. We will not find this in the judgment to Seselj. It will be only symbolic, as yet another proof that in fact the main criminals in the region of the former Yugoslavia were the Serbs,” said Antonic.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Harsh statements between Izetbegovic and Vucic (Faktor/Fena)

Reacting to the statement made by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic that Bakir Izetbegovic is looking for an excuse to start a new spiral of violence, the B&H Presidency Chairman Bakir Izetbegovic in a statement for web portal Faktor.ba said that the comments of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on the “spiral of violence that comes from Sarajevo” have probably been hasty and in a function of pre-election rhetoric within Serbia. Serbian Prime Minister said, “in my first statement after the Karadzic verdict I did not even mention Bakir Izetbegovic, but I seem to have anticipated well that somebody does not want reconciliation in the region, but instead goes against 35 percent of the population of their own country and is looking for any sufficient reason to start a spiral of first political, and then who knows what kind of violence. Serbia’s response is that we want peace and sincere reconciliation above all, not lawsuits and revisions of lawsuits. But, unfortunately, obviously we don't have a partner, and (obviously) some have understood all this as an opportunity to exact revenge on Serbs instead of reconciliation. And that is the difference of our views of the future,” Vucic concluded. Izetbegovic replied that he believed Serbs and should read the verdict very carefully, and try to improve their relations based on the facts established by the court.

 

Chances for a revision of the B&H genocide suit non-existent (Srna)

B&H Presidency member Mladen Ivanic has told Srna that he, as a Serb member of the B&H Presidency, will never allow a revision of the judgment in the B&H lawsuit against Serbia, which has recently been pompously announced and promoted by the Bosniak member of the Presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic. Chances for a revision of the B&H genocide suit against Serbia are practically non-existent, taking into account that there have not been any new facts, as well as the deadline for the completion of the proceedings against Radovan Karadzic, Bojan Milisavljevic, a professor of international law, told Srna on Tuesday. Thanks to the Dayton Peace Agreement, B&H Presidency Chairman Bakir Izetbegovic will not be able to bring another lawsuit against Serbia on behalf of B&H, said Aleskandar Vulin, the Serbian Minister of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, adding that Izetbegovic destabilizes B&H with his actions. Miodrag Linta, head of the Union of the Serbs from the Region, has called on Izetbegovic to give up on war politics whose goal is to destroy the Republika Srpska (RS), deny the Serb victims and celebrate the criminals from his own people as heroes.

 

Izetbegovic believes that SBB will no longer block the work of the Parliament (Patria)

Representatives of the SDA and HDZ B&H held a meeting at the B&H Presidency to discuss situation in the Federation of B&H. Absent from the meeting was the SBB, a third coalition partner. Some participants said that the meeting was actually about the relationship between the two parties. The SDA President Bakir Izetbegovic said that the meeting was initiated, and rightfully so, by HDZ leader Dragan Covic. “Some things neither go fast enough nor well enough. Laws and investments should be implemented much faster. ODRAZ funding is stuck, funding for removal of refugee collective centers should be accelerated. We also talked about personnel placement, said Izetbegovic adding that representatives of SBB will be invited to the next meeting. “I think that we have overcome the situation of a few days ago. Therefore, the situation in which SBB wanted to divert attention to the situation of Fahrudin Radoncic, so it did not take part in discussion nor it voted at the Federation parliament” said Izetbegovic. Covic thinks that the meeting provided answers they were looking for. “And that is to continue working intensively on reform agenda and master plan that has been adopted, because lately, a question whether we are together and whether this is a true partnership keeps re-surfacing. Very soon we will attempt the same meeting for B&H level because I think that we go about things too slow, we are too slow in agreeing, and if we want serious investing momentums and if we want to stabilize the situation in Federation, we have to show that the partnership works” said Covic. He also said that Parliament of B&H saw an over-vote. “Today we concluded: that mustn't happen ever again. We have to first sit and agree and then it should run smoothly. Dynamics that we have had over the past 5-6 months has recently started to differ from what we wanted. Prime Minister told us that he slowly starts to get a feeling that his space for action is being reduced. We have to change that, said Covic. Asked if the SBB was discussed in the meeting, Covic said: “It is difficult to have such communication because there is no SBB president; otherwise it could send a wrong message, it would be like we are meeting without SBB president. I will check with my associates and visit Mr. Radoncic one of these days, and talk with him like a friend and a colleague. I see no alternative for this partnership, regardless of what others say. I am certain that SBB representatives and Radoncic will understand that. I wish for him to be able to meet the temptations, said Covic, adding that SBB representatives should be understood: “Every once in a while they want to show that their president is subject to some activities that have no foundations in legal framework, and they want to present that as a political lynch. Let’s not speculate about that right now; I hope to visit Radoncic and discuss those things,” added Covic.

 

Meeting of Central Census Office postponed, no agreement on key issues (Patria)

The meeting of the Central Census Office scheduled for 30 March has been postponed until next week, Agency for Statistics of B&H confirmed for Patria. “Although they have put in some intensive work, statistics institutions failed to reach an agreement about disputed issues. In the coming days, activities related to tuning inside and among statistics institutions will continue, along with consultations with experts from the International Monitoring Mission. The goal is for newly reached solutions to be in conjunction with the international standards for census and with the Census Law” explained the Agency for Statistics. Meanwhile, Emir Kremic and Radmila Cickovic, directors of institutes for statistics of Federation of B&H and RS, have been called by the B&H Prosecutor’s Office to give statements. Namely, the Prosecutor’s Office is working on the case of determining if there are any indication of a criminal offense, particularly in relation to the amount of 50 million KM that were spent for the implementation of the 2013 Census. Velimir Jukic, Head of Agency for Statistics has been also called upon.

 

Bosnia, Croatia can resolve outstanding issues through good will, officials say (Hina)

Croatia and B&H are two neighboring, friendly countries and they can resolve their outstanding issues through good will, Croatian Parliament Speaker Zeljko Reiner said on Tuesday after a meeting with the Chairwoman of the B&H House of Representatives, Borjana Kristo. “We are in agreement that B&H and Croatia are two friendly, neighboring countries and with good will, outstanding issues can always be resolved. I believe that the ways of resolving those issues can be addressed already today,” Reiner told the press after the meeting. Kristo underscored that the two countries have more things in common than they have problems that were hampering their relations. Reiner underscored that Croatia supported and would continue to support B&H’s European aspirations. “B&H’s European path, stability and good functioning of the country and the equality of all three B&H constituent peoples are of key interest to Croatia. Of course, it is particularly important to us that Croats, as one of the three constituent people, be given a better status,” he added. Kristo underscored that advancing cooperation at the level of parliaments and Croatia’s experience from Euro-Atlantic integration processes would most definitely help B&H to meet its commitments in the context of joining the European Union, regarding reform implementation.

 

Juncker: Djukanovic’s role significant in the progress Montenegro achieved (CDM)

During a meeting with Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic in Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker commended the progress of Montenegro, pointing out that the country should demonstrate it had adopted democratic principles in the elections year and that it was on a stable European course. He said he expected the European Commission would be able to prize all the successes of the PM Milo Djukanovic’s in the November progress report on Montenegro. Juncker also said he had been monitoring developments in Montenegro since 1990s, emphasizing Djukanovic’s role in the progress that had been achieved since then.  Djukanovic also presented the political and economic situation in the country. He particularly thanked the European Commission for its support and understanding in the integration process, both in the negotiations with the European Union and in receiving NATO invitation. Djukanovic said that organizing credible general elections was the most important political task this year. Commenting on the political dialogue, he thanked EU for the confidence related to the capacity of Montenegro to conduct the process on its own.

 

Lekic: 9 April – the deadline for signing the agreement (TV Vijesti)

The deadline for signing the agreement between the government and part of the opposition on holding fair elections is 9 April, said the leader of Demos, Miodrag Lekic. He told TV Vijesti that there were two outstanding issues out of the seven conditions set by the opposition. Demos’s leader said that the agreement on creation conditions for fair elections might not be signed until the director of the public broadcaster TVCG, Radojka Rutovic, resigned. “A change in the public broadcaster is needed, in order for it to become public broadcaster in the truest sense. It would be a victory of democratic Montenegro and an end of managing the public broadcaster by the ruling party and clientelistic circles around it”, Lekic said. Asked whether the opposition made a concession and agreed with holding elections in Tivat on 17 April, Lekic said that the issue would remain outstanding until the agreement was signed. “At this point, boycott is an opposition’s political measure against the act of scheduling the local elections for which no conditions are created”, he said. According to Lekic, since time is slipping away, DPS should accept all opposition’s conditions as soon as possible. “Under the agreement, elections should be held on 9 October. So, 9 April is the day six months before the elections and it is short-term, but there is a possibility to have an impact. Until this date, the agreement would have to be signed. If DPS concludes Rutovic is more important for them than this transition which is also their chance to get fair elections and if that is an extremely important thing for them, then let them take responsibility”, he said. Asked whether the opposition already knows who will represent it in the government of electoral trust, Lekic said the names will be known after the adoption of the lex specialis in the parliament. “It is inappropriate to come out with some solutions now, because I do not know if everything will be implemented. As for me, I certainly will not be in that government”, he said. Lekic did not want to comment on inappropriate statement of MP for Positive Montenegro Azra Jasavic, who said, among other things, that PCG had opened the door to the opposition and her party to join the government of electoral trust. Lekic said that this might happen, but only if PCG achieved an agreement with DPS and joined the new government as one of the ruling parties.

 

Pajovic with Steinacker: Positive Montenegro opened government’s door to opposition

At the headquarters of the Positive Montenegro (PCG), the party’s president Darko Pajovic met the Ambassador of Germany Gudrun Elisabeth Steinacker. They discussed the current political situation as well as social and economic issues. During the meeting, Pajovic and Steinacker exchanged views on issues related to parliamentary dialogue and agreement between the government and the opposition. Pajovic pointed out that signing the agreement, which is expected soon, represented a major democratic step forward and an opportunity for further democratization of society and creating the conditions for uncontested, free and fair elections. “PCG has opened the government’s door to the opposition and after 27 years allowed the opposition to directly control the electoral process. We have initiated a process of political change by proposing a plan to overcome the political crisis, which was a condition to support the government during the confidence vote in the Parliament. Today, the plan is acceptable to most political entities and it is a good thing,” Pajovic said. As Pajovic said, it is a huge step forward for the state and the society to have a document agreed between the opposition and the government of DPS and its coalition partners. “Only a month ago, we had a completely different approach to solving problems and major political polarization. We have been convinced that PCG’s approach is good for the state and society and that it has been confirmed after,” Pajovic said.​

 

SDSM’s ‘Phantom’ voters turn out to be real people (Telegraf)

The list of dubious voters that was released on Tuesday on the State Election Commission's website features real people, Telegraf.mk reads. Those people are part of the constituency, casting ballots at each elections, have not been considered suspicious thus far. The dubious voters' list features 89,384 people, who in the next ten days, are to be subjected to field inquiries, carried out in person, at their homes by teams of the State Election Commission. After the list of 'phantom' voters was made public, many citizens have rushed to see whether their names are enlisted in the electoral roll, and have turned to the SEC website. The list of these voters features journalist Ivona Talevska, SDSM member Jani Makraduli, musician Goran Alacki, coach Lino Cervar, handball player Dragice Kresoja, MP Artan Grubi, journalist Erol Rizaov and many more. According to experts, this only indicates that the voters registry is generally realistic and that the number of voters that need to be erased from it is small. Initial prognoses of half of a million of voters, who according to SDSM were deemed as 'phantom', have been reduced to less than 90,000. It is not understandable why SDSM does not want to release the names of the persons who are to be subjected to field inquiries, while they continue to issue statements about ‘phantom voters’ constantly. On Monday, two SDSM members, Violeta Duma and Igor Milev, have made fierce objections against making the list of dubious voters public. However, the SEC interviewers are working on the ground for the second day and the verification is taking place in the best of orders. According to what could be seen, the largest part of the dubious voters is in the municipalities of Cair, Tetovo, the Skopje neighborhood of Aerodrom and the villages near Kumanovo.​

 

Paris terror attackers believed to have used phones purchased in Croatia (MIA)

Croatia is investigating whether some of the attackers involved in the November 2015 Paris terror attacks were using mobile phones purchased in Croatia. Croatian intelligence is cooperating with its French counterparts to determine whether the attackers that killed over 130 people in several coordinated attacks across Paris, were using these phones to communicate with each other. Two of the attackers are believed to have traveled to Europe through the now closed Balkan refugee route, that carried people from Syria, the rest of Asia and Africa, through Turkey and the Balkans. Croatia was one of the key countries along the route which had little security oversight. Croatian media report that one of the organizers of the attack boasted that he helped carry 80 Islamist fighters from the Middle East to Europe, intermingled among the thousands of refugees and migrants that used the route each day. The more recent Brussels terror attacks is also still being investigated, but at least one of the suicide bombers that took part in it is also believed to have fought in Syria, and to have used the Balkan route to come back to Belgium. Even Europe born Islamists, who have French or Belgian passports, found the route more convenient to use because it allowed them to raise less suspicion than when traveling with their documents.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

Kosovo Serb University Not in Danger, Belgrade (BIRN, by Sasa Dragojlo, 30 March 2016)

Officials in Belgrade have dismissed a reported threat to the ethnic Serbian University of Pristina - which in fact is based in Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo - as the result of confusion.

Serbian officials have rushed to quash rumours that the only Serbian university in Kosovo could be placed under the control of the Kosovo government. Pavle Dimitrijevic, head of the Bureau for Social Research, BIRODI, told BIRN that rumours that the University of Pristina could be integated into independent Kosovo's institutions were false. “The Serbian Office for Kosovo and Metohija ... is just proposing restructuring [the university] within the system of Serbia,” Dimitrijevic said. On Saturday, media outlets in both Belgrade and Pristina reported that an employee of the university had demanded the dismissal of Marko Djuric, director of Serbia’s office for Kosovo, for proposing to integrate the university into the Kosovo system. Djuric rubbished the reports on Monday, saying that Serbia would not allow anyone, “now or in the future”, to incorporate the university into the “so-called self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo.

“The university is one of the pillars of our [Serbian] nation in Kosovo and we will not allow anyone to reduce it or influence the work of the university in any way,” Djuric said. “The fate of Pristina University will always, with the support of Serbia, be decided exclusively by the academic community, its professors, students and by all those who make up this university," he added. The confusion appears to have stemmed from a proposal by the Serbian Ministry of Education to merge and unite faculties within the university, centralizing its management.

As of now, its faculties are located in more than one town. The university became dispersed after 1999, when Kosovo Albanians took over the university in Pristina, which had been heavily Serbianised during the years of Slobodan Milosevic's rule. The Serbian academics and students then moved out, while retaining their old name, University of Pristina. Seven of the 10 faculties are now based in the Serbian sector of the divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica: Economics, Medical Sciences, Law, Natural Science and Mathematics, Technical Sciences, Philosophy and Arts. But Arts is also partly based in Zvecan, near Mitrovica, while two faculties are based in Leposavic, also in northern, Serb-run Kosovo: Teacher Training and Sports and Physical Education. Agriculture, meanwhile, is based in Lesak. The university, which is entirely dependent on funding from the goverment of Serbia, has been given 10 days to vote on the Education Ministry’s proposal. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and Serbia has vowed never to recognise the statehood of its former province.

 

Serbia, Bosnia Leaders Clash Over ‘Genocide Lawsuit’ (BIRN, by Rodolfo Toe, Sasa Dragoljo, 29 March 2016)

Serbian premier Aleksandar Vucic accused Bosnian presidency member Bakir Izetbegovic of fostering “a spiral of violence” for saying Sarajevo could file a new genocide lawsuit against Belgrade.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic reacted angrily on Tuesday to a suggestion by the Bosniak member of the Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, who said that Sarajevo is considering filing a new lawsuit against Belgrade for aggression and genocide during the 1990s war on the basis of information from last week’s verdict convicting Radovan Karadzic.

Vucic accused Izetbegovic of looking for an excuse to start a dispute between the two countries.

“There is somebody who doesn’t want reconciliation in the region, and instead… is looking for any sufficient reason to start a spiral which is primarily politically violent, and which might lead to who knows what kind of violence,” Vucic told Serbian newspaper Politika. He said that Serbia “wants peace and true reconciliation first of all”, but complained that Belgrade “has no partner” in the process. “Somebody sees all this as an opportunity to carry out revenge against the Serbs, instead of achieving reconciliation,” Vucic said. Izetbegovic told Bosnian media on Monday that local experts were analysing last Thursday’s verdict convicting wartime Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison by the UN court in The Hague for genocide and crimes against humanity. Izetbegovic said that if the verdict against Karadzic contains “new elements” incriminating Serbia, Sarajevo will prepare a new lawsuit against Belgrade. “We will not sweep the suffering of these people and this country under the carpet and we will start to revise the process, but we need new proof,” he said. Bosnia and Herzegovina filed a lawsuit against Serbia at the International Court of Justice in 2006 accusing Belgrade of genocide against Bosniaks during the 1990s war. Although the International Court of Justice ruled in 2007 that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, it established also that Belgrade was only guilty of not having impeded it. The remarks by Izetbegovic and Vucic mark a new low in the recent history of relations between Bosnia and Serbia, which were gradually improving after the Serbian prime minister visited Srebrenica twice and organised the first joint session of Serbian and Bosnian governments in Sarajevo last year. But Milos Solaja, a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of Banja Luka and an expert in international relations, told BIRN that the two men’s statements should not come as a surprise. “They are part of the political rhetoric that was expected after Karadzic's verdict, especially if we consider that both Bosnia and Serbia will have elections in a few months,” Solaja said. He argued that Izetbegovic doesn’t have “any political tool” to launch a new lawsuit against Serbia. Bosko Jaksic, a Belgrade-based political analyst, also said that Vucic’s remarks were part of his political campaign for the parliamentary polls in Serbia next month. “He’s probably trying to gain additional political points,” Jaksic told BIRN, adding that Serbian politicians were trying to avoid commenting on the actual reasons why Karadzic was convicted. “I hope this is just a transient episode in the relations between the two countries,” he said.