SOCIALIST PARTY LEADER UN ENVOY STATEMENT ON KOSOVO SHOWS ANTI-SERB PREJUDICE
BBC Monitoring International Reports - August 26, 2006 Saturday

Text of report by Serbian news agency Beta

Ivica Dacic, chairman of the main committee of The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) said that the most recent statement made by UN Envoy Martti Ahtisaari in connection with Kosovo reflects his prejudice and stems from his desire to "pass judgment on an entire nation".

"This is yet further confirmation that these are not negotiations but an imposed solution and he is not a mediator but the Albanian side's helper," Dacic told Beta Agency in connection with Ahtisaari's statement that the policy that was conducted by Slobodan Milosevic "has to be taken into consideration" in deciding on the status of Kosovo.

"Besides, not even the Chernomyrdin-Ahtisaari plan for a stop to the bombing is being respected today and Serbia must respond to that urgently and unanimously," Dacic said.

According to him, Serbia should respond that it considers Kosovo its unalienable part and that it is prepared to talk about the autonomy of Kosovo within Serbia, but that it will not accept an imposed solution.

"That is why we are demanding an urgent session of our assembly on this issue," Dacic said, pointing out that in addition to Ahtisaari's statements it is also necessary to hold an assembly session because of indications that an imposed solution on the province's independence would be attempted by the end of the year.

He said that the Serb nation in the former Yugoslavia "was actually the greatest victim of nationalism, terrorism, and separatism".

"Today there are no more Serbs in Knin, in Pristina, and very few are left in the Federation of Bosnia-Hercegovina, so who was it then that carried out ethnic cleansing?" Dacic said.

He pointed out that all "government factors" today have the same view "in connection with Kosovo", just as the SPS has had "all these years, because that is not a party issue but a state and national issue".

Speaking at today's news conference in response to the demands of the coordinators of the Serbian negotiating team who asked him to clarify his statement that the "Serbs were culpable as a nation", Ahtisaari said that "every nation in the world has its burden for which it has to pay".

Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1915 gmt 25 Aug 06

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