David McAllister and Tanja Fajon, European Parliament members called upon responsible bodies to find culprits who killed Oliver Ivanovic, adding it is necessary to continue Brussels dialogue, Danas daily reports today.
Kosovapress quotes Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, as saying that only Kosovo institutions have the right to give authorisations for involvement in investigations into the killing of Serb political leader, Oliver Ivanovic and that this competency does not rest with either EULEX or UNMIK. However, Haradinaj said Serbian authorities only requested exchange of information which Kosovo side will oblige.
Family, friends, thousands of citizens, representatives of state authorities, army, political and public life, paid the tribute to Oliver Ivanovic, leader of the Civic Initiative Freedom, Democracy, Justice, and one of the most significant Serb leader from Kosovo, Serbian media reported.
The longtime editor of Politika Bosko Jaksic considers as untasteful the use of the death of Oliver Ivanovic for political confrontations, writes today Belgrade daily Politika.
''We could have been at least one day free of that kind of rhetoric, because of elementary respect towards Oliver Ivanovic, so let it continue today at that political level. Even today, it could not wait, than the day when he was killed, we were witnesses of heavy, extremely politicized and insulting statements," Jaksic told Tanjug agency.
Citizens were offering condolences on Thursday morning in front of a church in Belgrade for the slain Serb politician from Kosovo Oliver Ivanovic.
Following the brutal slaying of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic, analysts from both Serbia and Kosovo fear for the future of the EU-led dialogue, which was already in trouble.
Former EU envoy for Kosovo, Wolfgang Petritsch said in an interview for the Vienna-based Die Presse paper that the killing of the Kosovo Serb political leader, Oliver Ivanovic, puts into question the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. He said he knew Ivanovic personally and added that he was one of the persons who sincerely tried to find a solution alongside the Albanian majority in Kosovo. “I don’t want to speculate about the background of the killing but it has seriously challenged the dialogue,” Petritsch said.
Police Director Vladimir Rebic has confirmed that a torched car suspected of being used in the murder of Oliver Ivanovic belonged to a Serb from Austria.
Ivanovic was shot dead from a moving car on January 16, in northern Kosovska Mitrovica. According to reports, this car was later found torched near the scene.
The slaying of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic on Tuesday put a spotlight on new tensions in the Balkans, years after a violent conflict divided the region. Considered a moderate politician, Ivanovic was reportedly shot several times near his office in Mitrovica, a Serb-run city in northern Kosovo.
The editor-in-chief of the Pristina daily Koha Ditore Agron Bajrami told Belgrade based daily Danas that the murder of Ivanovic is a terrible crime that will have a profound effect not only on the situation between the Kosovo Serbs in the North, but throughout Kosovo.