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Thousands march around Belgrade to protest against possible recognition of Kosovo

The people were carrying Serbian and Russian flags, icons and church banner and singing patriotic songs

BELGRADE, March 17. /TASS/. Tens of thousands of people marched around downtown Belgrade on Friday protesting against recognizing Kosovo’s independence, a TASS correspondent reported.

The people were carrying Serbian and Russian flags, icons and church banner and singing patriotic songs.

"We cannot recognize the independence of Kosovo and Metohija. It is part of our soul, part of our mentality. We have been fighting and will fight for our people and country," Dusan, a participant in the action, told TASS.

Participants accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic of breaching the constitution and ceding Kosovo to Albania. They called for continuing to fight for Kosovo to the end.

"We are defending Kosovo from NATO! <…> We are defending our soil!," professor Milos Kovic said.

According to the organizers, several thousand people took part in the action and some 10,000 more were stopped by the police while approaching the city.

Vucic is expected to visit North Macedonia on March 18 to continue talks on the European plan for the settlement between Belgrade and Pristina. The talks will focus on the EU-drafted Agreement on the Path to the Normalization between Kosovo and Serbia, which envisages mutual recognition of passports, exchange of diplomatic missions, and legally-binding commitments to work toward comprehensive normalization.

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