BELGRADE, May 30. /TASS/. The conflict in northern Kosovo and Metohija can be settled if Pristina finally fulfills its obligations and establishes the Community of Serb Municipalities, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on Tuesday.
"As for northern Kosovo, there is a way out. And it exists not merely in nice words and promises. It exists on paper. It exists as an agreement, which was approved by Brussels and signed by both Belgrade and Pristina, on the establishment of the Community of Serb Municipalities that provided for fair elections and the appointment of representatives in the municipalities’ communities," he said, adding that this "would guarantee the rights, security and confidence in the future" for Serbs in Kosovo.
"The fact that the West doesn’t demand Pristina implement these ten-year-old agreements immediately demonstrates that they have other interests and other solutions for northern Kosovo. And this solution is Pristina’s reaching the north and ousting Serbs from there because they will never live under the control of the Kosovar Albanian authorities and the current situation is a vivid example of that," the Russian diplomat stressed.
Under the April 19, 2013 Brussels agreements on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, the Community of Serb Municipalities, a self-governing body of Serbs living in Kosovo, is to be established in the unrecognized republic. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has repeatedly said that his country has implemented its part of the Brussels agreements whereas the Kosovars only started to draft the Community’s charter and then suspended the process.