SERBIAN FM WARNS ABOUT SERBIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE IN KOSOVO COMING UNDER ATTACK
BBC Monitoring International Reports - October 19, 2007 Friday

Excerpt from report by Serbian independent news agency FoNet

Paris, 19 October: Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic stated today that Serbia's cultural heritage, of which four sites located in Kosovo are on UNESCO's list, were frequently targets of Kosovo Albanian's animosity instead of being bridges which connect people.

"Over 150 other Serb churches and monasteries have been destroyed over the past eight years, including the 35 [churches and monasteries] which were destroyed during the March pogrom of Serbs in the province in 2004," Jeremic told UNESCO 34th General Conference.

To destroy everything someone before you created, Jeremic said, means to erase the truth that you have ever existed in an area and is an act of "cultural cleansing".

"In Kosovo, as everywhere else in the world, it must not be allowed that peace be built on the ashes of destroyed cultural heritage. Unification cannot be sufficient for reconciliation and peace, providing and accepting differences is what is needed for that," Jeremic said.

Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1013gmt 19 Oct 07
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