The Serbian government will always be there for its citizens, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said while opening a maternity ward, part of a new hospital in the village of Pasjane, southeastern Kosovo-Metohija (KiM), on Wednesday.

Addressing those gathered at the ceremony, Vucic said that Serbia had always had the courage to defend and preserve what belonged to it, but it had made the most progress in times of peace and while making decisions “cool headed.”

"We will succeed in preserving that peace. We do not want any conflicts with anyone, but we do want to be our own people on our own soil," said Vucic.

“We want to be on good terms with our Albanian neighbors,” the prime minister said, adding that we should look both at our own well-being and a shared future as we would be sharing the same territory for hundreds of years to come.

He called on the citizens of Kosovo-Pomoravlje, a district in KiM, to preserve their land and refrain from selling it no matter how difficult the times might be for them, as that was the only way for us to remain “our own people on our own soil."

The Serbian government will always be there for you to help you, and the help will become even more valuable and more frequent, Vucic told the gathering.

Vucic said that Serbian institutions needed to increase their presence in Kosovo, and the province also needed investments, infrastructure projects and more maternity wards.

“We plan to open our office here, and also in Gracanica and Kosovska Mitrovica,” the prime minister said.

“It is our obligation to provide you with new roads and new jobs,” Vucic said, observing that Kosovo was where the greatest number of births occurred in Serbia.

“This is our birthplace and nobody will prevent our children from getting born here in the future,” he added.

“But we have to build peace,” Vucic said, adding that full peace and stability alone could help us move forward.

“Long live Serbia!” the prime minister said at the end of his speech.

This was the first visit of a Serbian prime minister to Kosovo-Pomoravlje since 1999.

Vucic was in Pasjane together with Ministers Bratislav Gasic, Nikola Selakovic, Nebojsa Stefanovic, Zlatibor Loncar and Aleksandar Vulin, and Director of the Office for Kosovo-Metohija Marko Djuric.

The prime minister and the ministers will also visit Strpce and Gracanica today.