Trajkovic: Vucic's Idea of Diverting Ibar River Is Meaningless Election Propaganda

Rada Trajkovic (BETAPHOTO/ARMENIJA ZAJMI BESEVIC)

Kosovo politician Rada Trajkovic said on Aug. 10 that diverting the Ibar River would jeopardize water supply for nearly 800,000 people in Kosovo, hoping that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic's idea was merely part of an election campaign.

In a comment for BETA on Vucic's statement that Serbia was considering diverting the part of the Ibar River running through the territory of Serbia proper in response to how the authorities in Pristina have been treating the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija, Trajkovic said Vucic's goal had been to inflame passions among the more extreme segment of the electorate.

"Diverting the course of the Ibar River would leave without drinking water the residents of northern Kosovo, Gracanica, Caglavica, Pristina and other places, or rather a nearly 800,000-strong population. Water from Gazivode Lake is also used to irrigate that entire area of Kosovo and to cool the boilers at the Obilic thermal power plant, meaning electricity production would also be halted. The plan of the state leadership, as announced by Vucic, is a path toward a humanitarian catastrophe," Trajkovic said.

She said Vucic's statement was the result of the demolition of Serb houses at Gazivode Lake, adding that it was a "ruthless action" by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti that had affected not only Kosovo Serbs but all responsible people. Vucic, after pledging, "I will not give up Gazivode, I will not give up Valac," has now come up with the idea of diverting the Ibar River, Trajkovic said, underlining that he had never had a strategy for the status of the Serb people in Kosovo, describing both Vucic and Kurti as factors of instability in the Western Balkans.