Depending on circumstances and momentum of the Serbian Government attitude towards Kosovo, Slobodan Petrovic, founder of the Autonomous Liberal Party (SLS) sometimes is depicted as a patriot and sometimes as a traitor, Blic daily reports today.

In any case, Petrovic was a politician who realized on time that concrete things for the Serb community could be done through Kosovo institutions.

At the last elections in Kosovo, Srpska Lista won 9 MP seats, while the only party who won 1 seat was SLS.

According to Petrovic, at the moment there are 9 representatives of the Government of Serbia in the Kosovo Assembly and 1 representative of the Serb people from Kosovo. He further assessed the biggest problem is that there is no policy towards Kosovo, not only when it comes to the current Serbian Government but all previous as well. All politics towards Kosovo were run from parties’ position and were driven with a narrow party interest, while state and national interests were put aside.

Petrovic said strategic interest of the Serbian state in Kosovo is that people remain in this area. If Serbs are not physically present then all other battles are lost. According to him, it is important that Belgrade listens to the Serbs from Kosovo and not the other way around, to hear what people from Kosovo have to say as they know better what is their interest than those who only listen about Kosovo, Petrovic concluded.