Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's visit to Kosovo on Sunday has caused, as expected, great tensions, a road block by protesters, but also his admission that Serbia had paid a great price for the wrong policy of Slobodan Milosevic and that at this moment there was no solution for Kosovo.
In a lengthy address in the ethnic Serb-dominated north of Kosovo on Sunday, Vucic reiterated that an agreement to resolve the long-standing dispute with Kosovo was still far away.
“We do not have a solution for Kosovo. We are not even close,” Vucic said.
Earlier in the day Vucic had cancelled a visit to the village of Banje in Kosovo, where some 300 ethnic Serbs live. Around 200 Albanian Kosovar war veterans of the 1998-99 Kosovo war had blocked the road leading to the village, burning tires and wood.
“Vucic should apologise for crimes committed and massacres all over Kosovo,” said one banner on the road to Banje, which was blocked by cars and a truck. “Vucic will not pass,” another banner read.
Vucic’s motorcade was then stopped by Kosovo police, which then had no other choice but to return to the Serb-dominated town of Mitrovica where he delivered his speech.
Addressing a crowd of several thousand people, Vucic condemned the policy of Serbia’s 1990s leader Slobodan Milosevic. He added that Serbia at the time had an illusion that it was big and powerful, adding that Milosevic was a “great Serbian leader,” but that Serbia’s wishes at the time were unrealistic.
“Serbia did not realise that it was not alone in the world, and that no country can live without the rest of the world, and that’s what it paid a price for,” Vucic said.
Illustrating the consequences of wars for the Serb population, Vucic said that “the chequerboard (Croatia’s coat of arms) is on display in Knin today, although it never belonged there. The number of Serbs in Sarajevo is fifty times smaller than before the war, and there are only a few ethnic Serbs living in Pristina today,” Vucic said.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci wrote on Sunday on his Facebook page that he “fully understands” the reaction of citizens in central Kosovo who put up roadblocks to prevent Vucic’s visit to a Serb-populated village in the area.
Thaci said that the blockade “shows that the pain and war injuries are still fresh.” Thaci added that as Kosovo and Serbia seek to mend ties, “the protests and roadblocks don’t help us.”
“We should know to rise beyond ourselves, beyond the injuries and manifold pain. We should do this on behalf of peace and reconciliation,” Thaci added.
Vucic was a fiery Serb ultra-nationalist during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, and a member of Vojislav Seselj’s radical party.
Kosovo, which has a population of 1.8 million and is mainly ethnic Albanian, unilaterally declared independence from Belgrade in 2008, almost a decade after NATO air strikes had ousted Serbian forces and halted a crackdown on ethnic Albanian groups in a counter-insurgency.
It is now recognised by more than 100 nations but not by Serbia, Russia, and five EU states.
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