06.02.2018.
Minister Vulin: Resolution of the Issue of Kosovo and Metohija is not possible without the Resoulution of the National Issue of Serbs in the Balkans
Today, Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin opened a round table discussion “Politico-security and defence aspects of Kosovo and Metohija problem”, which was organised as part of an internal dialogue on Kosovo and Metohija, in the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade.
The round table discussion was also attended by the Chief of General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces General Ljubiša Diković, Director of the Police Vladimir Rebić, and Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Đurić and representatives of the security sector.
Minister Vulin stated that Serbia needed to resolve the national issue as soon as possible, and that it was needed to negotiate and talk with Tirana, and that our relation towards the region, towards the neighbours had to be equivalent to relation that they have towards representatives of Serbian community who lived in their states. Minister Vulin also touched upon the criticism which says that the involvement of the representatives of the armed forces and security structures in the internal dialogue, which is at the same time a political issue, is wrong and bespeaks the militarisation of society.
- There is no criticism more groundless than this one. Along with the security structures of this country, the Serbian Armed Forces are one of the most respected segments of our community and society, and for this very reason, not only are they entitled, but they are also obliged to state their position. Certainly more so than some governmental and non-governmental organisations that believe that their very existence is a reason enough for them to say and think about anything they like, while the most prominent institutions of this nation, which have been lasting for centuries, have no right to think. Of course that the Serbian Armed Forces will execute every task, every order received by their Supreme commander, and competent authorities of the state of Serbia in accordance with the Constitution and laws, put people who spent and dedicated their life to the security of this country have the right and obligation to point to the politicians of this country, and the decision makes, in the direction in which certain decisions could lead, how they can be implemented, how valuable they could be in terms of security or economy, or how costly they could be. That is how I perceive our today’s gathering; I see it as a gathering of experts who will present their views that may help the state leadership, and the entire nation to formulate its position regarding Kosovo and Metohija, and the internal dialogue – Minister Vulin said.
According to his words, the initiative of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, to talk and think about Kosovo and Metohija is an act of exceptional political and personal courage.
- I can freely say that in the last two centuries no one had courage to come so deeply to the core of the Kosmet problem. We should be thankful to him for that, and for the opportunity that we have been given; not to be decided about but to decide. We should support that courage and stand by it by our own example. We consider the thesis that the frozen conflict in Kosovo and Metohija is wrong and unsustainable to be untrue. It is responsible both in relation to us and to the future of our children. But it is precisely why we have to go a step further and say that the frozen Kosmet conflict is not the only frozen conflict that Serbian people have, and that the conflict with Albanian nation, that we see in the area of Kosovo and Metohija, is not the only conflict and it is not the only nation with which we would have something to discuss regarding the position of our people and about the future. If the Kosovo conflict is not good for the future of both Serbs and Albanians, then the frozen conflicts in other areas of our ethnic territory are not at least good for us, or for the future of our children, or the future of all our other neighbours in the Balkans – Minister Vulin pointed out.
He added that the issue of Kosovo and Metohija is not the only open issue that we have with ourselves and with others as well.
- Kosovo and Metohija is, and very often it looks like the only important issue in the national sense, but it is simply not like that. The resolution of the issue of Kosovo and Metohija is not possible without the resolution of the national issue of Serbs in the Balkans. We have to accept the fact that after two centuries of persistent, steadfast, stubborn, and tough fight, sometimes more and sometimes less successful, the Serbian people has not resolved its national issue. The civil war that broke apart the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia left the Serbian people divided, broken; left them in the states that they did not choose; in the states which quite often perceive them as a disturbing factor because of the fact of their existence. Hence a conclusion is drawn that the civil war in the territory of former SFRY, as different as it may be in its essence, had one common trait – a conflict and reckoning with Serbs, even where there were no organised Serbs or where it could not have been even imagined that the conflict with Serbs would be possible. That is why, now, when we analyse the state of our nation, when we analyse where it lives and how it lives, we have to start from the fact that resolution of just one part of the Serbian national issue will not relieve our children of the burden of its resolution, much like the relation with Albanians will not be resolved only in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija – Vulin underlined and added that we had to accept the new reality.
- And, the new reality is that after expected quick admittance of Macedonia to NATO Alliance, all Albanians, with an exception of two municipalities, will live in one essentially political area in terms of security. And we have to accept the reality that all the Balkan states, with predominant Albanian population, will have completely the same political attitude and political position when it comes to Serbs and Serbia. There is no and there will not be the fundamental difference between the policy of Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and the territory that we call Kosovo and Metohija, when it comes to Serbia and the relation towards Serbs and Serbian interests no matter where the issue comes from. We have to accept it as a fact – Vulin emphasised.
As he stressed, it was precisely why the process of creation of the Great Albania needed to be stopped.
- The fundamental question that we are trying to respond is how to stop the Great Albania. That is why, when we hear the statements about coming to Niš, these are not the statements of political adventurers, nor accidental emotional outbursts of rage because of the establishment of the Special Court. It is a message of a clear policy that has never been condemned by a single political representative of Albanian people in all the states that I have mentioned. These are the message that we must take seriously, and that is why the process of stopping the Great Albania needs to stop exactly in Kosovo and Metohija. Lasting and definite delineation between Serbs and Albanians must be established in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, but the process of delineation and the process of political conclusion cannot be finished without everything being fulfilled, agreed and concluded. It goes without saying that the Brussels agreement, with all its results, has to be firstly fully implemented, as well as the establishment of the Association of Serbian Municipalities and all other – the minister of defence said.
According to him, Serbia cannot allow itself to relinquish the room, both political and economic, and it cannot allow the Great Albania being created at its borders, and somebody else determining its borderlines.
- Hence we must admit that we are not negotiating, and we are not talking and we are not looking for a solution with Priština. We are looking for the solution, at least for the time being, with Tirana. The Albanian factor in the Balkans is not random, it is not scattered, it does not live in several states. It is unified, determined, with rather clear ideas and directions. Different political activities of representatives of the Albanian community cannot be imagined no matter where they live. But why then is it so often insisted that the representatives of Serbs in different states should think differently, to act differently and to treat their mother country almost with hostility. These are all the things that need to guide us when we define ourselves as a nation, not only as politicians, but as a nation, regarding the internal dialogue, or the relation towards Kosovo and Metohija – Minister Vulin stressed.
He said that our relation towards the region, towards the neighbours, needed to be equivalent to their relation towards the representatives of Serbian community who lived in their states.
- It is not possible to eradicate the right of the Serbian people to exist, to limit the use of their language, script, to prohibit their history, present them as disturbing factor, a factor which is a constant threat for the existence of each of these states and to say that the relations with Serbia are good, that they are following an upward trend or that they will be even better. That is not possible. The relation that you have towards the Serbs with whom you live is the relation towards your neighbouring state. It cannot be any different. The state of Serbia has a legitimate and constitutional right to protect its nationals and fellow citizens, no matter where they live. It is precisely why all other countries that have the privilege of having a larger or smaller number of Serbs living in their territories, to treat them with respect that they should show towards the state of Serbia as well. That is why our policy must be exactly like that. When it comes to our regional relations, our first question is, or at least it should be: “How do you treat the Serbs with whom you live? The way you respect them, that is how you respect the state of Serbia – Minister Vulin sent the message.
He pointed out that he was not necessarily speaking about territorial issue, when he spoke about the Serbian national issue.
- It is not necessary. It is possible and must not be excluded. But it is not the only possible issue, because if it were then we would completely lost sight of all the Serbs who territorially could not in any way be connected to the mother country. I am talking here about the position of Serbs; when I talk about the effort to resolve our national issue, I talk about the Serbian national issue and our care for Serbs wherever they live. Unfortunately, we hear very often in our people that every attempt to resolve the Serbian national issue is in fact a call for a war, conflicts, but we very rarely hear that the so called Natural Albania, which is just an euphemism for the Great Albania, is essentially to source of instability in the Balkans and a threat to all who live there. Let us not forget, Serbs did not show a tendency to populate anybody else’s territory, apart from the territory where they live now. Some other people have done that – the minister of defence said.
He said: “The fact is that we have to find the answer to all those questions and the fact is that the policy that I propose demands widespread support and contemplation of the entire nation.
- The fact is that precisely those who thought that the process of changing borderlines in the Balkans was quite possible when it came to Serbian ethnic territory, they will fiercely swoop down on anyone who mentions that the change if borderlines are possible in the Balkans even after 1999. Hence, our relation hast to be pragmatic in the first place, logical, but it also has to be clearly defined so that we can send a message both to the Balkans and the remainder of the world that the stability of the Balkans will depend on the extent to which the peoples of the Balkans are secure and satisfied with their national issues among other. The SFRY did not break apart, it did not disintegrate and stopped existing because its economy was poor or because it did not have ideology and the reason for existing, or because it did not manage to resolve the national issue. The conflicts in the Balkans are always the conflicts among the nations. Sometimes through their engagement the great powers manage to blur them or define them differently, but in the end the only truth emerges – that in the Balkans, the one who did not manage to resolve the national issue, did not manage to resolve the problem of peace and stability for a longer period – Minister Vulin said.
He added that our struggle was to ensure peace, stability, and sustainability of life of all the nations in the Balkans.
- Our job is even at today’s gathering to ensure to possibility for our children to have the future, but we will do so by asking these difficult questions and try to find the answers to them. It is certain that our bilateral agreement with the representatives of the Albanian nation, and all others who believe that the Balkans is the place where they live, could not be functional without the acceptance and support of the great powers. And it is thus another direction in which we have to work, and ask from them to speak up about the future of this area, primarily observing what the peoples from this area desire and want. The European integration, which is a strategic goal of our country, cannot be conditioned by giving up on the beginning of resolving the national issue of Serbia. The European integration cannot be the occasion or reason for us to quit from resolving the national issue of Serbs. We have been trying for two centuries to resolve our national issue, and we have been trying for two centuries to be the master of our home, to decide independently about ourselves, about how we will grow and make progress, where we will live. We cannot after two centuries pass that decision into the hands of Brussls or any other bureaucracy. Only the Serbs, and no one else, can decide about that – the minister of defence stated.
That is why the European integration must not be in connection to our desire to define our position towards ourselves and to finally, after two centuries of successes and failures, struggle, sometimes of straying from the right path, to finally find the way to define ourselves in relation to the world and ourselves – Minister Vulin stated.
- This is my modest contribution, my opinion as a politician and the member of this nation. This is not the opinion of the Ministry of Defence or Serbian Armed Forces. This is my position, and the Serbian Armed Forces will, like always throughout the history of its people, be on the side of its people and be THE support which never flinches - Minister Vulin concluded.
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