Vucic and Kurti Give Harsh Speeches Before U.N. Security Council

Aleksandar Vucic, Skopje, Jan. 22 2024 (BETAPHOTO/Government of North Macedonia)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said before the U.N. Security Council in New York on Feb. 8 that the expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo was the only goal of the authorities in Pristina, which Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti denied.

At an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council on the situation in Kosovo, scheduled at Belgrade's request, Vucic said that the decision to abolish the dinar as a currency in Kosovo "is just one in a series of serious, planned, well-organized and long implemented and systematic measures of Pristina, which serve to attack the Serb population, with the end goal of creating unbearable living conditions for the Serbs and their persecution."

Kurti said at the session that Belgrade's claims that Pristina was persecuting the Serb community "is a lie denied by many international organizations" and accused Serbia of "committing genocide" in Kosovo at the end of the 20th century.

Right after the session, Vucic told Serbian media that Great Britain and Switzerland had been "most strongly against Belgrade and most on Pristina's side," that he was surprised by the "very fair" position of France, whereas he called the speeches of representatives of Algeria, China, Russia, Ecuador, Sierra Leone, and Mozambique "exceptional."

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said on Feb. 9 that at the U.N. Security Council session Vucic "in a clear and argument-based way showed that what Kurti is doing to the Serbian people in Kosovo is a crime against humanity."