Kosovo’s Deputy Foreign Minister Petrit Selimi said in an interview for Radio Free Europe that Kosovo has created a powerful lobbying group for membership in the UNESCO. Selimi, who visited the Holy See on Tuesday, said the main topic of discussion there was Kosovo’s membership in the UNESCO. He mentioned Serbia’s negative discourse against Kosovo’s membership and highlighted a recent statement by Serbia’s ambassador to the UNESCO, Darko Tanaskovic. The latter told a Russian radio station that Serbian cultural heritage is not only Orthodox bur also Christian and that “if the defense front will be broadly Christian, the action will have an ever greater impact”. Selimi said representatives of the Holy See told him that they did not discuss Kosovo’s membership with Serbian authorities. “Ambassador Tanaskovic’s theories on the conflict between Islam and Christianity are part of an outdated discourse that has no room in present-day Europe,” Selimi said. He added that Kosovo’s membership in the UNESCO will be difficult but that dozens of states in the lobbying group are aware that even the Serb Orthodox Church will benefit from Kosovo’s membership. Selimi also praised the clergy of the Serb Orthodox Church in Kosovo for staying away from the media discourse on the matter. “The Serb Orthodox Church and the clergy in Kosovo, namely Teodosije and Sava, have stayed away from the media discourse and I think this is a positive contribution,” he said.