United Nations published this video item, entitled “Kosovo – Security Council Briefing (15 Oct 2021)” – below is their description.
Following a series of security incidents in Kosovo, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Zahir Tanin, today (15 Oct) called for dialogue and said, “history in the region has tragically and repeatedly shown that ostensibly small incidents, misreading of intentions, and outright mistakes can trigger an unstable security escalation that puts lives at risk and benefits no-one.”
Tanin, who is also the Head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), presented the report of the Secretary-General on Kosovo to the Security Council.
He described clashes stemming from a police operation in northern Kosovo to enforce a new license plate validity regime in September, as well as further protests and clashes this past Wednesday following the deployment of Kosovo Police Special Police Units in the north, as part of what was described as an anti-smuggling operation.
The Foreign Minister of Serbia Nikola Selaković expressed “deep regret and concerns” that the security situation “has been marked by an increasing number of various ethnically motivated attacks and incidents targeting Serbs, which was also stated in the report, that the provisional institutions of self-government in Pristina continue to take unilateral steps and refuse to implement the agreements reached in the Brussels Dialogue, and that institutional discrimination against Serbs, attacks on the sites of Serbian Orthodox Church, and the undermining of the economic sustainability of Serb communities in the province, have continued.”
For her part, the President of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu told the Council that “the Republic of Kosovo today is a free, sovereign, independent country, and an increasingly prosperous country” and said the UN Mission “has not only overstated its mandate, but it is also there in contradiction to the interpretation of the International Court of Justice.”
She urged Council members “to put your budget at a better use.”
United Nations YouTube Channel
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