NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Belgrade based daily Politika that peace and stability in Kosovo has been a priority for this alliance for past 20 years and that the UN mandate for the NATO peacekeeping mission remains unchanged.
The military-police parade ''Defence of Freedom '' was a clear message to friends and enemies, everyone should interpret it as they see fit, says Aleksandar Vulin.
Asked to comment on the claim made by some Western media that Serbia was engaging in "sabre-rattling" during a time of instability in Kosovo and Metohija, the defense minister said Belgrade did not contribute to that instability.
After Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj dismissed Deputy Minister of Justice Vesna Mikic, and Minister of Administration and Local Government Ivan Todosijevic because – as it was interpreted in Pristina – they “insulted the Racak victims“ and referred to the 1999 bombing of the-then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as “NATO aggression,“ Kosovo Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli decided to declare anyone who “denies war crimes in Kosovo persona non grata in Kosovo,“ KoSSev portal reports.
20 years will have passed at 02:06 hours CET on April 23 since NATO airstrikes targeting Serbia's public broadcaster, RTS, that killed 16 employees.
This was the first case of a media outlet being declared a legitimate military goal.
The attacks came as part of NATO's 78-day war against Serbia waged in the spring of 1999.
Human Rights Watch said a year later, in 2000, that there was no justification for the bombing of the broadcaster.
A study has been conducted on a generation of children born after NATO's aggression on Serbia in 1999.
President of the Commission for Investigating Consequence of the NATO bombing Darko Laketic announced this on Thursday.
He told the public broadcaster RTS that this research has been conducted together with the Batut Institute of public health, because it was possible to exclude all risk factors with the young population, unlike with adults - giving the results great scientific value.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again called for international law to be respected in order to avoid situations similar to the bombing of Yugoslavia.
Putin, who spoke during plenary session of the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, referenced NATO's 1999 aerial war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, i.e., Serbia and Montenegro.
The director of the Serbian Cultural Center in Paris says the disputed exhibition marking 20 years since NATO started bombing Serbia "has not been removed". Radoslav Pavlovic added that the exhibition has not been removed, but that some parts have been "rolled up."
Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj dismissed Vesna Mikic yesterday from the post of the Deputy Minister of Justice, whereby he stated that there is "no room for individuals, regardless of their ethnicity in the Kosovo government and Kosovo institutions that can undermine a common Euro-Atlantic values," reports KIM radio.
Mikic responded, regarding her dismissal, that democracy in Kosovo was just an illusion.
We remember March 24 as the day when diplomacy failed and we sincerely regret the civilian casualties during the 1999 events, said the Joint Statement of Condolence of representatives of embassies of Canada, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States of America State.
“We share the pain with all those who lost their loved ones in the wars from the 90s,” the embassies wrote on 20th anniversary of the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia.
"Children born (in Serbia) between 1999 and 2015 have been exposed to a toxic factor that caused them to be susceptible to malignant diseases."
An investigation by a commission set up to look into the consequences of NATO’s 1999 bombing of Serbia, presented on Tuesday, showed this.
The commission's president, Darko Laketic, told reporters at the Serbian National Assembly that this study focused only on children, because they are less exposed to other risk factors such as smoking.