Tonino Picula: If Serbia Fails to Extradite Radoicic to Pristina, International Community to React More Strongly

Milan Radoicic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC/DS)

A Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Tonino Picula, said on Oct. 23 that if Serbia failed to extradite a vice-president of the Serb List party, Milan Radoicic, who had resigned in late in September, it would add to the already complicated relationship between Belgrade and Pristina, and a potential reaction by the international community might result in even stronger political and diplomatic actions against Serbia.

“A vast majority of the European parliamentarians supported last week a resolution urging the member states of the European Union (EU) to introduce targeted restrictive measures against destabilizing actors in Serbia connected to the terrorist attack on Kosovo police officers,” Picula said, explaining that the restrictive measures should include decisions to freeze property and travel bans, but that they should not be limited to them.

“As for Serbia’s cooperation (in the investigation), it is difficult to confirm with absolute certainty its engagement in shedding light on conflicts, and even when Serbia cooperates, it often does it with fingers crossed behind its back,” said Picula, one of the authors of the EP Resolution on the situation in the northern municipalities in Kosovo, including a gun battle in the northern Kosovo village of Banjska, in which three Serbs and one Kosovo police officer were killed.

Picula said that his peers at the European Parliament wanted the Union’s policy towards the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue to change , as “it clearly does not work, so a more innovative approach by the current leaders of the process is required, to restore its credibility.”