REPUBLIC OF SERBIA - MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS - DAILY SURVEY

 NEW IRISH AMBASSADOR TO KOSOVO

SERBIA – CROATIA’S LAWSUIT AGAINST SERBIA

ICJ RULES IT HAS JURISDICTION IN LAWSUIT CROATIA VS SERBIA

THE HAGUE, Nov 18 (Beta) - The International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that it had jurisdiction to examine Croatia’s lawsuit claiming that Belgrade was responsible for genocide allegedly committed against nonSerbs in Croatia in the 19911995 war. The ruling, announced at the Peace Palace by court president Rosalyn Higgins, rejected Serbia’s objection that the U.N.’s highest court did not have jurisdiction in the case because, at the time when the suit was filed, in July 1999, the then FR of Yugoslavia was not a U.N. member which it became in 2000 nor a signatory of the Genocide Convention. Ten of the court’s 17 judges voted to overrule Serbia’s objection, while seven were in favor of its inclusion. After the Nov. 18 ruling, the proceedings will be resumed via the exchange of written arguments on the premise for the Croatian suit whether genocide had been committed in Croatia and if Serbia was accountable.The deadlines for submitting the arguments will be announced at a later date, Judge Higgins said.The International Court of Justice ruled that, though the status of Yugoslavia in the U.N. had been uncertain and contradictory from 1992 to 2000, Belgrade itself had accepted the jurisdiction of that court in the 1990s, by responding to lawsuits filed by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, and filing suits against NATO members. The judges postponed the decision on Serbia’s objection that the lawsuit could not include crimes committed before April 27 1991, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was formed, because the country named in the suit did not exist at the time.

CVETKOVIC: SERBIA TO PROTECT ITS INTERESTS BY COUNTER LAWSUIT

BELGRADE, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic has announced that Serbia will try to defend itself before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and that it will protect its interests to the maximum by a counter lawsuit.In a live broadcast by TV Pink, Cvetkovic said that the dispute was supposed to have been resolved by an out of court settlement, but that Croatia had chosen to go to court. The International Court of Justice decided that it was competent in the case of the lawsuit which Croatia had filed against Serbia for the genocide the country allegedly committed during the 1991-95 war.

JEREMIC: SERBIA WILL FILE APPLICATION AGAINST CROATIA

BELGRADE, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - Serbia will file an application against Croatia to the International Court of Justice for ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed during Croatia’s military and police Operation Storm in 1995, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said late on Tuesday. "Croatia did not appropriately respond to the hand of reconciliation which Serbia repeatedly offered to Croatia with a wish to leave the past behind and turn to our common future in Europe. An application will now be filed against Croatia in order for the truth finally to be found out," Jeremic told the Serbian Radio-Television. Jeremic said that Croatia had refused to face the fact that 250,000 Serbs had been ethnically cleansed from the territory of Croatia. "We will do all in our power to have our case appropriately presented to the Court. We will review all developments in the 20th century, World War II and Independent State of Croatia. We will turn to history to find out the truth for the sake of our common future," the Serbian foreign minister stressed. Speaking about the two states’ future relations, Jeremic said that Serbia wanted the best relations with its neighbours, but that it had to get to the truth about crimes committed during Operation Storm. "Our common future is the European future. We will turn to history to determine the truth for the sake of our common future," Jeremic said.

MALOVIC: FINAL RULING WILL BE IN SERBIA’S FAVOR

BELGRADE, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - Serbian Minister of Justice Snezana Malovic said on Tuesday, on the occasion of the statement of the International Court of Justice on Croatia’s lawsuit against Serbia, that in this proceedings Serbia’s arguments will be accepted and that the final ruling will be in Serbia’s favor. Addressing journalists, at the conference of the Prosecutor’s Association of Serbia organized on the occasion of new law on prosecutors, she announced that the possibility of a settlement or counter-lawsuit will be considered but that a decision on this will be made later on. Malovic called on political structures of the two countries to reconcile, because that is one of the main conditions for the European integration of the countries in the region.

VARADI: BELGRADE WILL DECIDE ON COUNTER-APPLICATION

THE HAGUE, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - Serbia’s legal representative at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Tibor Varadi said on Tuesday that Serbia might file an application against Croatia to the ICJ for genocide committed against Serbs in the latest war and that authorities in Belgrade would decide on this. The counter-application must refer to genocide, which is the subject matter of Croatia’s application against Serbia, since the ICJ is competent only for the worst crimes, Varadi said in a statement to Tanjug. He said that unless the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement, a public debate on the merit of the dispute would follow and the Court would then most likely give Serbia a one-year deadline to prepare its defence and possible counter-application, and the entire procedure might last for at least three years. Varadi said that all objections of the Serbian team had not been rejected, since the Court believed that they belonged to the merit of the dispute, rather than the preliminary decision on competence. He said that it was good that the key issue was whether Serbia could be held liable for crimes committed during the armed conflicts before April 27, 1992, when the FR Yugoslavia was still not established as a state. Varadi said that the Serbian legal team had prepared for defence for the past eight years and that it had worked on the counter-application in parallel. He said that it would be good if the Court had decided it was not competent, because it would be "politically good and healthy to stop with confrontations and continue witn the determination of the individual responsibility for crimes committed on all sides." Varadi recalled that Serbia had repeatedly made it very clear that it was ready for an out-of-court settlement, but that Croatia had ignored it and added that it was now Croatia’s turn to react. He said that he would no longer head the Serbian legal team, because it had been agreed previously that he should deal only with the procedural side of the dispute. CROATIA SATISFIED WITH DECISION OF ICJ

VUKOVAR, Nov 18 (Beta) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Parliament Speaker Luka Bebic stated on Nov. 18 that the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague was a positive one for Croatia. Speaking after the memorial session, marking 17 years since the suffering of Vukovar, all three politicians said they were satisfied with the decision and that it was an expected one. "For us this decision was expected, considering all that had happened. The symbolism is in the fact that we received this piece of news on this very day in Vukovar, when we are commemorating the victims of Vukovar and the heroism of those who had defended the town. This is symbolic, as well as some form of justice," Mesic stated. "It is especially important that the decision, announced this morning, said that jurisdiction has been accepted to investigate all perpetrators and those who gave the orders, as well as to find out the complete truth about the missing persons, and for the missing treasures to be returned," Prime Minister Sanader stated. Asked about whether he expected a counterlawsuit by Serbia, Sanader said it was time for Serbia to face the past. He added that it is necessary to say that "the war did not take place on the territory of Serbia, that it was not Novi Sad that had been destroyed, but Vukovar, and that Croatian soldiers did not set foot in Serbia, but the opposite." "Milosevic’s Greater Serbia policies caused great suffering to the Croatian people," Sanader concluded. SIMONOVIC: CROATIA’S GREAT SUCCESS, BUT IT WILL NOT BE EASY

THE HAGUE, Nov 18 (Beta) - The chief legal representative of Croatia, Ivan Simonovic, stated in The Hague on Nov. 18 that the decision of the International Court of Justice that it has jurisdiction over Croatia’s lawsuit against Serbia for alleged genocide was "a great legal success of Croatia." "One should bear in mind that this is round one. We are entering round two, the discussion about contents, in very good form, because the court has dismissed all Serbia’s objections," Simonovic said. He estimated that three more years would pass until the main hearing about Croatia’s lawsuit. "We are now in a very good position, as we got all we can in this stage of the proceedings. However, there is still the decision about content, and this decision will not at all be easy, because the court had placed the threshold for proving genocide very high in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is up to the Croatian side to present the appropriate evidence to the court," said Simonovic, who is also the justice minister of Croatia.

SERBIA – EULEX

JEREMIC: WE ARE WAITING FOR SC SESSION, FOR US TALKS ARE OVER

BELGRADE, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has said that Belgrade regarded as completed the talks on the six-item plan, which implies a neutral status of EULEX in Kosovo Metophija, and added that we are now waiting for "the soonest possible" confirmation by the UN Security Council of what has been agreed. "As far as Belgrade is concerned, the talks are over and the matter will not be discussed any more. We reached an agreement with the United Nations and we expect that this will be approved of at the UN Security Council as soon as possible," Jeremic said in a late-Tuesday broadcast by the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS).He underlined that Serbia appreciated the efforts of the international community to convince the bodies in Pristina that the "road of compromise is the only road.""We will continue to be a constructive party and we will do all that is in our power to preserve peace and stability. We hope that the six-item plan with its definition of status neutrality will be approved by the SC, after which we will work together on the establishment of peace and stability in the region of the entire West Balkans," Jeremic pointed out.

IVANOVIC: EULEX NOT POSSIBLE WITHOUT UN DECISION

BELGRADE, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Secretary of State Oliver Ivanovic with the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo anhd Metohija has said that it is out of the question that the European Union (EU) Mission EULEX could be deployed in Kosovo without a relevant decision of the United Nations (UN) Security Council. "The involvement of the UN Security Council is the bottom line which we will not cross. It does not matter what form this will take: a presidential statement has been mentioned as just one of the possibilities. Actually, it is important that consensus is reached among the permanent members of the Security Council," Ivanovic said, speaking in reaction to a statement by ranking United States official Stuart Jones, who said that the EU mission can be deployed even without a statement by the president of the UN Security Council. "Within this, we are knowingly relying on our stands and those of Russia coinciding," Ivanovic said. Ivanovic believes it is overly optimistic that the EULEX could be deployed in early December this year, as some representatives from Brussels or Washington have suggested. "I believe we will wait for the new US Administration to deal with the issue of Kosovo. The EU can deploy the EULEX only in places where the population will accept them, which is south of the Ibar and further away from the Serb enclaves," Ivanovic said.

KOSOVO OFFICIALS REJECT SIX-POINT PLAN

PRISTINA, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - Kosovo President Sejdiu stated that Kosovo institutions had rejected the six-point plan for the deployment of EULEX and that they urge for deployment of the EU mission in keeping with Kosovo laws. As reported by RTK, Sejdiu read out a four-point statement after a three-hour meeting of U.S. state official Daniel fried, Head of international civil office Peter Faith, the Kosovo president and Prime Minister Taci. "We urge for a deployment of EULEX in Kosovo in keeping with the mandate envisaged by the declaration of independence, the document by president Ahtisaari, the Kosovo constitution, laws, join action of February 2008 and the invitation Kosovo institutions had forwarded to EULEX," the first point read. It was said in the second point that "the Kosovo institutions fully reject the six-point document," while it is said in the third point that "the Kosovo institutions will closely cooperate with EULEX in the whole of the territory of Kosovo based on the above-mentioned documents and with respect of Kosovo’s sovereignty and integrity." Sejdiu read in the fourth point that "the Kosovo institutions will cooperate with the United States of America, EU and NATO, as always." Late last night and today, U.S. Undersecretary of State Daniel Fried discussed with Kosovo leadership deployment of EULEX. Fried said that the points presented by President Sejdiu are a good basis for progress. He said that he will leave for Geneva immediately to discuss ways of progress with U.N. officials. I will leave for Geneva in order to meet with Alain Le Roy of the U.N. to discuss future steps, said Fried, adding that there is a good basis for a productive progress. Fried evaluated that with Kosovo officials setting conditions, the talks on deployment of EULEX had entered a new phase.

SOLANA: NO CHANGE IN EU PLANS FOR EULEX

BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - The European Union has not changed its plans for the start of EULEX activities in the beginning of December, despite the rejection by Kosovo authorities of the UN plan for UNMIK reconfiguration, sources in the office of EU High Representative for foreign policy and security Javier Solana told. Talks are continuing and plans have not changed, they said, refusing to comment Pristina’s rejection of the UN six-point plan or the four-point draft declaration presented by Kosovo Albanian leaders. All talks in the EU focus on its plan for EULEX adopted in Feb, regardless of any talks held by the UN, US, Russia, Serbia or Kosovo, and EULEX deployment continues unhindered in Kosovo, the sources said. EU GenDir for Western Balkans in the EU Enlargement Directorate Pierre Mirel said on Nov 7 in Belgrade that the EU had accepted Serbia’s request that EULEX should be approved by the UN, be status neutral and have no connection with Ahtisaari’s plan.

VARMA: UN DETERMINED TO IMPLEMENT SIX-POINT PLAN

PRISTINA, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Spokesman Brendan Varma for the United Nations (UN) secretary-general has told the Pristina daily Zeri that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon does not plan to give up or change the six-point plan for the reconfiguration of UNMIK and the deployment of the European Union (EU) Mission EULEX in Kosovo and Metohija. What the secretary-general has announced remains, Varma said, pointing out that the UN does not intend to give up the six-point plan. The UN will continue to work on finding a solution, the spokesman said. The Pristina daily Koha Ditore reported that Varma yesterday said that the EU is the body that should decide when it will deploy the EULEX in Kosovo, as this does not depend on the UN Security Council or on Secretary-General Ban. Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci yesterday formally rejected the six-point plan for the deployment of the EULEX. They stressed that they advocate the deployment of the EU mission in keeping with the laws of Kosovo. United States (US) Under Secretary of State Daniel Fried agreed with this stand of the Kosovo officials. He underscored that the so-called four points of Pristina present a sound basis for a starting point.

TERRAL: THOSE WHO ARE FOR THE EU, CANNOT BE AGAINST EULEX

NIS, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - French Ambassador to Serbia Jean - Francois Terral said Tuesday that the EUlex mission is backed by all 27 EU members and that it is important that this mission is deployed in Kosovo and Metohija. EUlex is the European Union and no one who is for the EU can be against Eulex, Terral told reporters in Nis, but refused to speak about the details of the plan for Eulex, as they are still under discussion. He failed to directly respond to the question whether Belgrade’s proposals will be adopted or whether a new compromise is possible following a plan by Pristina which was announced by Hashim Thaci. Terral retierrated that it is crucially important that a legal state is implemented in Kosovo and in all regions. Terral and the head of the European Commission mission in Belgrade, Josep Lloveras, together with other EU ambassadors were participating in a regular meeting, after which they met with Nis Mayor Milos Simonovic and his associates. The meeting with the Nis leadership focused on the decentralization of Serbia, and the EU amabssadors said that they came to hear about that region’s problems and to send a strong message that the underdevelopped southeastern Serbia can count on aid and its european prospects.

MANTICA: EULEX IN WHOLE TERRITORY, RESPECT OF AHTISAARI’S PLAN

PRISTINA, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Alfredo Mantica stated in pristine on Tuesday that EULEX should be deployed in the whole of Kosovo’s territory, urging for implementation of Martti Ahtisaari’s plan. "We have recognized Kosovo’s independence. We are responsible for everything that is written in Ahtisaari’s plan and we repeat that EULEX should be deployed in the whole of Kosovo’s territory. We will find a way to respect not only requests but also the political language that will be used," Mantica stated after his meeting with Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Hasim Taci. Sejdiu said that cooperation between the United States and European Union and in that respect the achievement of what the Kosovo institutions had accepted with Ahtisaari’s plan, Constitution and laws of Kosovo, is of big importance for Pristina. Commenting on the protest called by 15 nongovernmental organizations in Pristina for Wednesday, Sejdiu said that he shares the anxiety of Kosovo’s citizens.

KERMABON: EULEX ONLY SYMBOLICALLY PRESENT IN NORTHERN KOSOVO

PRISTINA, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Head of EULEX Yves de Kermabon has said that the EU mission cannot operate in northern Kosovo without Belgrade’s approval, the Pristina daily Zeri reported on Wednesday, referring to diplomatic sources in Brussels. In his latest report presented to the EU Political and Security Committee, Kermabon said that at the beginning of December, EULEX would comprise a total of 1.300 members. The goal of the EU mission is that its deployment in Kosovo be concluded by the end of winter, the report said.EULEX announced that the deployment would start on December 2, but that for the time being, it was not necessary that the operation covered northern Kosovo as well. The issue of the mission’s deployment in northern Kosovo would be discussed some time later on.

MANTIKA: ITALY FULLY UNDERSTANDS SIX-ITEM PLAN

BELGRADE, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Alfredo Mantika said that his country fully understood the six-item plan for UNMIK reconfiguration, which Belgrade was insisting on, and wanted the reasons the Serb minority had put forward to be accepted with a big dose of realism so that the halt in the deployment of EULEX in Kosovo could be overcome, the ANSA has reported. Mantika, who arrived in Belgrade on Wednesday after his brief visit to Pristine, told ANSA that besides the EULEX matter, which was now being returned to the UN, he and his Serbian hosts would also discuss the issue of Belgrade’s cooperation with the ICTY. The Italian deputy foreign minister will meet with Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Goran Bogdanovic, Director of the European Integration Office Milica Delevic and Chief of the Cabinet of Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, Borislav Stefanovic.

SERBIA – EU

DJELIC: AUSTRIA SUPPORTS SERBIA’S ENDEAVORS FOR EU

VIENNA, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - Austria will continue to support Serbia’s endeavors for integration in the EU, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said after meeting Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik. The talks focused on Serbia’s European perspective and Plassnik reiterated that Austria, as one of Serbia’s main allies in the EU, will advocate the granting of candidate status to Serbia as soon as possible, as well as visa liberalization and unfreezing the Interim Agreement which was ratified by the Serbian parliament, he said. During his visit to Vienna, Djelic attended the start of applications for Serbia’s new biometric passports at the Serbian embassy and a conference of the Austrian National Bank.

PLASSNIK: SERBIA TO CONTINUE ON ITS PATH OF REFORMS

VIENNA, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - For Austria everything is clear - Serbia is part of the European family, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik has said after her meeting with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic in Vienna. Serbia has an indisputable European perspective, and this is why we have decided to continue to persist on supporting Serbia on its path of integration, Plassnik said in a statement. We have been and we will continue to be an advocate of Serbia’s interests in the EU, she underlined. Pointing out that Serbia had sufficient potential to make speedy progress in the process of European integration and that for a very short time it had made considerable progress on the path of European reform, Plassnik underlined that the country had to remain persistent in that respect.

LJAJIC: BRAMMERTZ WILL FIND PROGRESS IN COOPERATION

BELGRADE, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - President Rasim Ljajic of the National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY has said that ICTY Chief Prosecutor Brammertz will find absolute progress in Serbia’s cooperation with that court, in his report to the UN Security Council, but that this cooperation has not been fully realized yet because indictee Mladic is still at large. Speaking for RTS, Ljajic said: "we are all looking forward to a positive report, but, knowing the manner of work of the ICTY prosecutor, he will leave out statements such as positive or negative in his report and will merely conclude what he has seen or heard - absolute progress in cooperation, the presence of political will and credibility of the actions we are undertaking, which he also said during the talks with us." "Brammertz will also conclude that full cooperation has not been realized because Mladic is not in The Hague," Ljajic pointed out. That will be the report that Brammertz will submit to the UN Security Council, and "it is up to us to continue with these activities in order to end this matter as soon as possible," Ljajic said.

HUNGARY WILL SUPPORT SERBIA’S ENDEAVORS FOR EU INTEGRATION

BUDAPEST, BELGRADE, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom said meeting Serbian parliament Speaker Slavica Djukic Dejanovic that Hungary is ready to support Serbia’s endeavors for accelerated integration in the EU. Djukic Dejanovic said her visit to Hungary was an important step in fostering bilateral cooperation, above all between the two parliaments, the parliamentary press service said in a release. Djukic Dejanovic and Hungarian parliament Speaker Katalin Szili signed a framework agreement on inter-parliamentary cooperation. Szili pointed to the importance of close cooperation between the two countries, particularly as regards minorities and cross-border relations. Djukic Dejanovic said that the framework agreement on inter-parliamentary cooperation should serve as a model for cooperation with other neighboring countries too. At the Serbian embassy in Budapest, she conferred with representatives of Serb minority institutions.

SERBIA – ECONOMY

CVETKOVIC: BUDGET FOR 2009 WILL BE RESTRICTIVE

BELGRADE, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic has said that the income of the 2009 budget will be around 700 billion dinars and the spending around 50 billion dinars more than that sum. Speaking for Radio and TV Pink, Cvetkovic said these were preliminary figures, and stressed that the budget deficit for 2009 will be around 1.5 percent of the gross social product. The prime minister reiterated that the budget will be restrictive and that public spending will be cut down.

JELASIC: STATE SHOULD BE MORE RESTRICTIVE

NOVI SAD, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Governor Radovan Jelasic said on Tuesday that it was very important in the time of crisis that the government and central bank adopt measures to alleviate the consequences of the international financial crisis, because "under these conditions it would be much better if the state were more restrictive." During a visit to the Matica Srpska cultural society, Jelasic told reporters that the central bank was forced to introduce restrictive measures, such as the increase of the interest rates, because the country underwent inflationary pressure parallel with the reduction of economic activities. The increase of the price of gas and telephone impulses or the announcement that the utility bills will increase is a strong inflationary pressure and "if somebody had wanted to choose the worst time period for this, they couldn’t have chosen better," Jelasic said. He added that the revision of this year’s budget meant expansiveness and that next year’s budget, whose proposal had not been published yet, was strict "according to what the IMF has devised" and this should be borne in mind. Recalling that the exchange rate of the dinar determined the market, Jelasic said that the local currency was stable despite psychological pressure in the past few days.

U.S. AMBASSADOR AT REOPENING OF BELGRADE STUDENT RADIO

BELGRADE, Nov 18 (Beta) - The U.S. ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter, on Nov. 18 visited the Belgrade University student radio station at the Faculty of Political Studies, where a reception was held to mark the official revival of the students’ program production. Munter told reporters that the revival of production was a joint project of the U.S. Embassy and the Faculty of Political Studies from 2003. This is an opportunity for the voice of Belgrade students to be heard and for it to be shown that the media have a productive role in society, Munter said. He said the education and training of students, "future media professionals, who will maintain high professional standards," represents a very important factor in the development of a democratic society in Serbia. In 2003, the U.S. Embassy secured equipment worth $50,000 for the Faculty of Political Studies needed for the founding of a student radio station, while the Faculty secured space, furniture and utilities. From 2003 to 2007, the radio broadcast musical and entertainment programs, news and information for students, but the broadcasting ended in 2007, when the Law on broadcasting came into effect, disqualifying the radio station from obtaining a broadcasting permit. In order to give students radio space, the station signed an agreement with a licensed radio station, Studio B, which will broadcast one hour of student radio programs each day. In order for the agreement to be carried out, the U.S. Embassy has secured necessary equipment worth $15,300, which was installed in both radio stations.

KOSOVO AND METOHIJA

DACIC: ARREST WARRANTS FOR TACI, CEKU & HARADINAJ STILL IN FORCE

BELGRADE, Nov 18 (Tanjug) - The warrants issued by Serbia’s judicial organs on grounds of terrorism for the arrest of Kosovo Albanian leaders Hasim taci, Agim Ceku and Ramus Haradinaj are still in force, Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic stated on Tuesday. "Arrest warrants, central and international, issued against Haradinaj, Taci and Ceku by judicial organs are still in force," Dacic said at the Serbian parliament. The Serbian parliament Committee for Defense and Security on Tuesday decided to request information from the Interior Ministry on whether the "red" Interpol warrants for the arrest of Taci, Ceku and Haradinaj had been dropped. Lawyers of the Association of the Families of the Kidnapped and Murdered in Kosovo and Metohija had submitted to the Committee an application to investigate the truth about those statements. Some ten years ago, the Pristina District Court issued, to the order of the Serbian Interior Ministry, a warrant for Taci’s arrest on suspicion that he had taken part in the murder of Serb policemen and civilians.

MANTIKA: ITALY FRONT LINE OF DECANI DEFENCE

DECANI, Nov 19 (Tanjug) - Italy, who has been entrusted with the protection of the religious and cultural heritage in Kosovo, is the front line of the defence of the Orthodox Decani Monastery, Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Alfredo Mantika said late on Tuesday during his meeting with Bishop of Lipljan Teodosije, seated in Visoki Decani Monastery. Over the past few days, we received a number of threatening notes from Albanian extremists, Father Sava said in the talks that were held in this monastery, which has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. I trust that the events from March 2004, when the Serbs in the province were exposed to the Albanians’ wave of violence, will not repeat themselves, he said. Bishop Teodosije underlined that most of the threats were being used as political instruments and did not represent a real threat to the monks living in Decani Monastery. Mantika reiterated that Italy opted for a speedy deployment of the EULEX Mission in Kosovo and Metohija.

NEW IRISH AMBASSADOR TO KOSOVO

PRISTINE, Nov 18 (Beta) - On Nov. 18, Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu accepted Irish Ambassador Martin Green’s letters of accreditation. Green is also the Irish ambassador to Hungary. Together with Premier Hashim Thaci, Sejdiu thanked the ambassador for Ireland’s support to Kosovo and voiced a willingness to continue improving relations between the two states. So far, 52 states have recognized Kosovo. Ireland recognized Kosovo’s independence on Feb. 29.

For further information:

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia