First of all, I would like to greet you on behalf of the Council of Ministers of Serbia and Montenegro and of the Republic of Serbia and express my appreciation for being able to participate in today’s meeting of the Security Council on Kosovo and Metohia. I would also like to thank the Special Representative of the Secretary General for his comprehensive report.

Time and again, I have tried to draw the attention of the Security Council to the difficult position of the Serbian and other non-Albanian communities in Kosovo and Metohia, which has not often been properly addressed in the official reports coming from the Province. In recent talks I had with the international officials, I have been told that the world is tired of repeatedly coming back to this issue, that Kosovo and Metohia will never be like Switzerland in terms of the standards of a modern democratic society and that it was necessary for Belgrade to change its approach in order to board the train which is leaving the station, with or without us.

Even at a risk of being reproached again, I cannot but repeat that the conditions of life of Serbs and other non-Albanians in the Province are inadmissibly poor. The Secretary General has also unambiguously noted it in the latest report on the situation in Kosovo and Metohia. On this occasion as well, I would like to express my appreciation to the Special Representative who, despite the aggressive Albanian and international campaign to portray the achievements of the newly-elected provisional institutions of self-government in a more favorable light than the actual situation warrants, consistently insisted that none of the standards was even close to being fulfilled.

The pretext for such situation should be sought neither in the Kosovo Serbs nor in Belgrade, but in the general environment prevailing in the Province, characterized by the lack of political maturity on the part of the leaders of majority community. Let me give you some examples that convincingly illustrate the reality in Kosovo and Metohija:

- the Parliament and Government of Kosovo and Metohia are not truly multi-ethnic;

- there is no protection for non-Albanian communities from being out-voted;

- there is no strategy to resolve huge unemployment and embark upon economic recovery;

- lack of opportunity for Serbs and other non-Albanians to get employment in the public sector;

- lack of elementary security for Serbs and other non-Albanians whose freedom of movement boils down to “humanitarian bus transport” and “train for the freedom of movement”;

- continued illegal privatization as a basis for further ethnic cleansing of Serbs and other non-Albanians by economic measures;

- constant attacks and incidents against Serbs, not isolated, not condemned and not countered by efficient measures by the local political leaderships;

- Serbs and other non-Albanians are deprived of all linguistic rights;

- Serb property continues to be looted without any protection by the local authorities and police;

- No returns of expelled and displaced persons, no efforts to encourage returns; no municipality in Kosovo and Metohia has worked out plan or a strategy for returns;

- No efforts to reconstruct Serb cultural heritage, falsely laying the blame on the Serb Orthodox Church;

- Organized crime in all forms continues to thrive in Kosovo and Metohia, not solely multi-ethnic but multi-national;

- The Kosovo Protection Corps is a training ground for Albanian extremist groups committed to violence; KPC is getting ready to become an army in direct violation of resolution 1244;

- Serb and other non-Albanian national communities practically have no confidence in political and administrative system in Kosovo and Metohija; they are totally prevented from taking part in all political processes, having been fully marginalized as second-class citizens;

- Since October 2000, Pristina and Albanian leaders have been consistently evading the necessary dialogue with Belgrade, shifting the blame on Belgrade;

- Media in Kosovo and Metohija are promoting hate speech on a regular basis and broadcasting falsehoods on Serb and other non-Albanian communities; they have been engaged in a campaign for the Province’s independence and hardly have any broadcasts in Serbian;

- There is no rule of law, Serb and other non-Albanians do not have access to judicial system…

Despite such situation, an inappropriate decision to open the question of the future status of Kosovo and Metohia has been made under the pretext that the perpetuation of status quo is no longer possible. Understandably, no one is in favor of perpetuating the status quo in Kosovo and Metohia, least of all Belgrade. But we should be aware that the implementation of key provisions of Resolution 1244 would be a major step forward departing from the status quo. Clearly, speaking of the most sensitive issue related to Kosovo and Metohia - the preservation of its multi-ethnic character - not only was there lack of any headway in the implementation of the resolution but things have become worse. For almost six years now, the new reality of Kosovo and Metohia has been that one national community, the Serbian one, has been disappearing under the pressure and violent acts by the majority community. If this is an important yardstick to measure the standards in the implementation of the rule of law, democracy and minority protection, not only do we have a status quo in Kosovo and Metohia, we have a general regression. These facts cannot possibly be hidden in any way. In light of these facts, how can we contemplate the perspective of a future status of Kosovo and Metohia at all?

Since their deployment in the Province in June 1999, the international forces have been trying to put the standards of a modern multi-ethnic and democratic society in place. Three years ago, this approach to the resolution of problems of Kosovo and Metohia was defined and officially called “standards before status”, which Belgrade supported. Despite the negative assessment of the implementation of these standards, indicated also in the report of the Secretary-General, there are unjustifiably optimistic assessments that after six years of poor results, there will be a turn-around and major progress in just a few months, thus creating the conditions for negotiations on the future status of the Province. At the same time, there are suggestions that the “standards before status” will be reformulated into “both standards and status” policy which actually implies the recognition of the failure on the part of the international community and search for a quick exit strategy, deliberately embracing a detrimental compromise as regards the creation of a truly multiethnic and democratic society in Kosovo and Metohia.

I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize that Belgrade’s approach has remained the same all along since the democratic government took over in October 2000. We have been sincerely trying, as partners to the international community, to contribute to the establishment of a multiethnic society and confidence-building. Immediately after the democratic changes took place in Belgrade, in 2000 and 2001, with the assistance and in partnership with the international community, we jointly achieved a great success in defusing the crisis in the south of central Serbia. Nevertheless, when we tried to apply the similar approach in Kosovo and Metohija, we were blocked and all our initiatives were immediately discarded since they came from Belgrade.

We are firmly committed to help in a constructive manner so that several month-long deadlock in the relations with Pristina be overcome as soon as possible. I would like to recall that this deadlock was a consequence of a mass and organized pogrom against the Serbs committed by the Albanian extremists in March last year. We considered then, as we do now, that the question of survival of Serbs is most directly connected to their more efficient and more reliable institutional protection as a community in Kosovo and Metohija. That is why we focused our activities on decentralization as a crucial issue of security and institutional transformation of Kosovo and Metohia. In doing so, we did not want to diminish the importance of the so-called technical issues. However, in conditions of physical endangerment of the Serb national community these issues were objectively less important. We do not consider that by returning some of these technical issues on the agenda, the problem of decentralization has lost its crucial importance in the Province.

In view of the above, we raised with the Special Representative the issue of revitalizing the working groups for missing and abducted persons and energy and sought to initiate the process of reconstruction of the churches and monasteries damaged or destroyed in the last year’s wave of violence. The meeting of the working group for missing and abducted persons will be held in Belgrade on 10 March and we hope that it will contribute to the resolution of this sensitive and above all, humanitarian issue. Some steps have also been taken in order to start the work of the High-level Working Group for Security as well as of working groups for decentralization, transport and returns. We hope that the initial results will already be seen in the next few weeks. I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that Belgrade stands ready to participate fully in all processes in Kosovo and Metohia, however on an equal footing from the beginning to the end of each individual process, including the process of decentralization.

Let us return, in the end, to the popular metaphor that has been often used recently to describe the unfolding of the process in Kosovo and Metohia. Where is the train from the beginning of this statement heading? If its final destination is Europe, instead of a local line, the train should join our larger composition steadfastly traveling to full implementation of all standards of modern European States and full membership in the European Union. Without side track stops where bad compromises in reaching the standards of a truly multiethnic society are to be made and the borders of a mono-ethnic State are to be drawn before entering Europe without borders. If its destination is Europe without compromise, Belgrade will be on that train.