Thursday, June 02, 2005

South Serbia Albanians rule out destabilization caused by Kosovo status talks

Presevo, 2 June: Albanian political leaders in southern Serbia have responded sharply to a statement by Serbia-Montenegro Defence Minister Prvoslav Davinic, who said that the situation in southern Serbia could become destabilized if Kosovo's status was not resolved favourably for Albanians.

Riza Halimi, the Presevo mayor and chairman of the Party for Democratic Action (PDS) [PVD in Albanian], told Beta he was surprised by Davinic's statement, which was reminiscent of his earlier announcements of "a hot spring".

"As we saw, the predictions of a hot spring amounted to nothing. I believe that statements of this type, especially when made by the defence minister, do not help to stabilize the situation in the region," Halimi said.

He added that he failed to see a single argument supporting such predictions. [Passage omitted]

Source: Beta news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1352 gmt 2 Jun 05

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