Moscow Condemned Murder of Serbian Politician in Kosovo

___________________________

Editor:

I’d bet that the Americans had a hand in this. They’re “making America great again”… please, do spare me…

BMD

On Tuesday, the MID RF said:

We resolutely condemn this cowardly act. Attempts to settle political scores using such methods are fraught with exacerbation of atmosphere of terror and recurrence of the interethnic conflict in the region. We call on all international missions in Kosovo to use their mandates to take exhaustive measures to prevent possible incidents in the region. We hope that corresponding structures will conduct a thorough investigation of what happened to expose those responsible and duly punish them.

On Tuesday, Oliver Ivanović, 64, the leader of the Kosovo Serb party Freedom, Democracy, and Justice, was shot dead as he entered his party’s headquarters in Kosovska Mitrovica. A fellow party member said no one heard any sounds of shooting and a neighbour who was returning from shopping found the wounded politician. Police later found a burnt car without an identification number, which the killers allegedly used. Ivanović was taken to hospital with five gunshot wounds to his chest. Doctors tried to save his life but to no avail.

Earlier, Ivanović served as the State Secretary of the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija in the Serb government. In January 2016, he was sentenced to nine years in jail for alleged war crimes against Albanians in 1999. In February 2017, the first-instance court’s verdict was overturned and a new trial began. Ivanović was under house arrest and in April 2017, he was allowed to defend himself in court at liberty.

16 January 2018

TASS

http://tass.com/politics/985331

See also:

Serbian president calls murder of top Kosovo Serb politician “‘terrorist attack”

Leading Kosovo Serb politician killed in drive-by shooting, prosecutor says

Belgrade suspends dialogue with Kosovo in EU due to Serbian politician’s murder

Serbian party leader killed in Kosovo: reports

Advertisement

State and Church Share “Close Views” on Kosovo

______________________________

On Thursday, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić met with Serbian Patriarch Irinej Gavrilović “to discuss his proposal for a final settlement for Kosovo”. Nikolić, who often meets with the SPC head, said that his recently announced platform “would go towards what Serbia can accept as a final solution, without threatening its sovereignty and territorial integrity”. After a meeting that lasted almost two hours, President Nikolić told reporters that he and the Holy Synod have “very close views” about the issue, saying, “We talked about Kosovo and Metohija, the fate of our nation, our territory, the SPC, security in Kosovo and Metohija, and about how I see a solution”.

He noted that these are still “only discussions and consultations” and that there’s no “formal document” to present to the President of the Government, and, then, to the public. Nikolić said, “I presented some of my thoughts and I didn’t meet disapproval or disagreement from the Holy Synod. So, we’re very close in our thinking about what it should look like in the end”. Asked when the public would see the document, he said that he’d work “closely and intensively” to agree on this with President of the Government Aleksandar Vučić, “because such a document requires general agreement, or at least consent from the assembly, for what the government would propose on behalf of the President. It isn’t something that we should argue about, it’s a document in which we must find solutions that the government would support, as the body that needs to implement it and that’s negotiating in Brussels”. He called for patience, saying that we must wait for the meeting between Belgrade and Priština in Brussels, scheduled for 9 February, “to attempt to continue where (the dialogue) came to a halt a while ago. It seems to me that in that time we’ve all had time to think about what’s happening and what awaits us, and I think that we understand that procrastination and wasting time isn’t working in favour of Serbia”.

Nikolić said the other topics covered today included problems in the functioning of the Church, its relationship with state authorities, and the issue of restitution, saying, “The church has concerns about developments in Kosovo and Metohija, and I think it’s proper for His Holiness and the Synod to want to be informed about what’s being done, how far we’ve come”. Nikolić added that, as a member of the SPC, he’s anxious to know the views of the Synod, whilst exchanging thoughts with the Patriarch “helps make many things clearer. Now, I think that the need to meet more often is very manifest, at a time when we might face great temptations in solving major Serbian issues”.

22 January 2015

B92

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2015&mm=01&dd=22&nav_id=92956

Christian Kids from Syria to Holiday at Russian Camp Due to Russian Generosity… Americans Nowhere to Be Seen

______________________________

On Monday, 100 children from the Damask Orthodox Shelter in the Mar Tekla Monastery in the Christian village of Ma’loula shall arrive in Moscow for a two-week vacation in a Russian holiday camp. V I Yakunin, the head of the Centre of National Glory supervisory board, one of the backers of the project, told us, “I’m certain that the Syrian kids will remember their stay in a Russian camp for their whole lives. I hope that this would be able to redirect the kids from the horrible events that befell them”. The kids will meet Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias, have a tour around Moscow, take part in projects, and do sports. The Centre, together with the Andrei Pervozvanny Foundation, arranged holidays for kids from hot spots in the past… ten years ago, it sponsored some 540 children from Kosovo and Metohija.

The three years of conflict in Syria completely or partly destroyed some 1,600 schools and more than half of all hospitals. According to UN estimates, more than 9 million refugees inside Syria and more than 2 million in neighbouring countries are now in need of help. UNICEF estimated that the number of Syrian children living in poverty reached 6.6 million in June 2014. In the past, Russia assisted Syria. In 2013, the MChS sent 200 tons of humanitarian aid to Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. In return, the Syrian government decided to introduce the Russian language into the school curriculum starting in the 2014/15 school year.

28 July 2014

Rossiya Segodnya

http://en.ria.ru/society/20140728/191376506/Russia-to-Host-100-Syrian-Orthodox-Children-for-Two-Week.html

Patriarch Irinej’s Christmas Epistle Emphasised Kosovo

______________________________

In his traditional Christmas epistle, Patriarch Irinej Gavrilović put special emphasis on the position of Serbs in Kosovo, saying that suffering and injustice persist there. He noted, “Unrest and violence rule in Kosovo and Metohija. For decades and centuries, they’ve robbed us of that province, of historical Old Serbia”. The patriarch wrote his message ahead of Christmas… celebrated by Serbia‘s majority Orthodox believers according to the Orthodox calendar, on 7 January. He said, “To our brothers and sisters in Kosovo and Metohija we say, ‘Be aware that you aren’t alone and forgotten, the entire Serbian nation and justice-loving people of the world are with you’”, calling on Kosovo Serbs to live in peace, harmony, and love, both with each other and with everyone else.

Patriarch Irinej also touched on the position of Serbs in former Yugoslav republics, noting that a campaign against the Cyrillic script is “used as a cover to continue the exile of Serbs from Croatia, to intimidate them, to prevent them from coming back”. He appealed to the Macedonian authorities to immediately release Archbishop Jovan Vraniškovski, head of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Ohrid of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who’s “unjustly held captive, his flock is denied freedom of faith and conscience”. He also urged the international community to prevent further discrimination. Vladyki Irinej also protested incessant “attacks of the authorities in Montenegro on the identity, status, and freedom of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and its attempts to interfere with its internal affairs and canonical structure”. In his epistle, the Patriarch wondered why the ideologues of the schismatic Montenegrin Orthodox Church don’t require a similar thing from Roman Catholics as well, to ask them to move their seat from the Vatican to Montenegro.

3 January 2014

B92

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2014&mm=01&dd=03&nav_id=88872