KOSOVO SERB LEADERS WARN OF WORSENING SITUATION IN PROVINCE
BKTV (Transcript) - May 30, 2003

Presenter: If the international community does not stop insisting on a multiethnic and unitary Kosovo, the project will turn into a contradiction in terms because there will be no Serbs left in the southern province, leaders of the Serb National Council SNV have warned.

Reporter: Raska-Prizren Bishop Artemije warned that the situation was especially difficult in Kosovsko Pomoravlje, Vitina and the vicinity.

Reporter: Members of the SNV said that one could not insist that Serbs and Albanians live together solely for the purpose of proving the project of a multiethnic Kosovo is justified. Besides, a long-standing policy of double standards could influence the final status of the province. SNV official Marko Jaksic A Kosovo army is being created, and it is said that all the institutions which are being created will not influence the status of Kosovo. They have practically created a state, and yet it is said that it will not influence the status of Kosovo.

Reporter: The SNV has defined its position on the solution of the Kosovo crisis, which is based on multiethnicity, while insisting that borders are not altered.

SNV official Rada Trajkovic: If the Albanians call for an independence referendum, then the Serbs also have the right to call a referendum on staying within the Serbia -Montenegro union - so, they will ask for a referendum to be called in the whole state. That is our democratic right, because Serbia and the Serb people have their legitimate interest here, and Kosovo-Metohija has never been an independent state.

Reporter: Besides the complaints about the international community and the Kosovo institutions, the SNV leaders also complain about the work of the Coordination Centre which, they believe, has not done what it was supposed to do because it has given up on the concept of decentralization and creation of two entities.

Source: BKTV, Belgrade, in Serbian 1355 gmt 30 May 03

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