The Deputy Minister of the Interior of Kosovo Saša Rašić last week took part in 4th Belgrade Security Forum, where he presented security challenges faced by Kosovo and activities of the ministry in fight against the crime. This is the first participation of a Kosovo representative at this forum, whose main goal is cooperation in fight against security challenges in the region.

Rašić assessed that overall security situation in Kosovo is much better if compared with the previous years and underlined the declining trend of ethnically motivated incidents.

“When it comes to relations between Serbs and Albanians I can say that the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina has contributed to gradual normalization of relation. Number of ethnically motivated incidents is getting slower, and we can’t talk about serious crimes any more, what is positive fact and we’ll strive to keep it so,” Rašić said.

Rašić went on to say that fight against organized crime is important and highlighted the growing threat of religious extremism and growing number of the young people who are departing into wars, fighting on the side of the Islamic State and other extreme Islamic organizations.

“Institutions have proved that they want to deal with this problems, the best indicator that we are seriously dealing with the problems is the action we carried out recently. A lot of people were arrested in relation with the recruitment of persons for wars in Syria and Iraq. This phenomenon was sanctioned as a crime in a draft law and I hope that new legislative will adopt the law,” Rašić said at the 4th Belgrade Security Forum.