National Bank of Serbia: Money Was Sent to Kosovo in Accordance With Same Practice Used for Years

National Bank of Serbia (BetaPhoto/Ana Slovic)

On Feb. 8 the National Bank of Serbia said, after the latest statements by the provisional institutions of Kosovo with regard to banning the bringing in of dinars into Kosovo and Metohija, that the money was meant for paying the salaries, pensions, welfare etc. of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.

The bank stressed that Pristina had once again showed that its intentions were to deny the elementary conditions for life to the Serb population in Kosovo. The dinars were sent to the central bank's treasury in Leposavic via a vehicle belonging to the bank, which it recalled, is the only authorized institution that decides on the use of the dinar in the entire territory of Serbia.

It explained that in accordance with the same practice that it had been using for years, the bank's vehicle was sent to the Jarinje crossing, where a Henderson company vehicle took over the money and that, even though the company was licensed by the temporary institutions in Pristina for transporting money, it was sent back without any explanation.

"Measures that are solely political and ethnically motivated were brought and they are completely opposite to any comparative professional practice and unknown in any financial system that is even slightly adjusted to international standards, which says enough about the alleged independence of the temporary institutions in Kosovo which brought this decision," the central bank said.