"WE DO NOT EXPECT INCIDENTS IN SOUTHERN SERBIA"

19. February 2013.

Belgrade - President of the Coordination Body, Zoran Stankovic, said that South Serbia wasn’t a potential spot of conflicts, as it had previously been stated by Azem Vlasi, a Kosovo politician.

"I don’t think that it is an accurate assessment of the situation. It is true that South Serbia has large problems, which are primarily economic ones, but that is being exploited for political purposes. South Serbia is stable and we don’t expect any unpleasant events to occur there "said Mr. Stankovic for RTS.

Speaking of the problem with registers in South Serbia, Mr. Stankovic said that the main problem was non-compliance with the laws.

"The Law on Registers was adopted in 2009 and it provides for the names of all citizens to be written first in the Cyrillic letter, and only then in the letter of a specific national minority. This wasn’t the case in South Serbia, so that this was misused and presented as a problem, according to which Albanians couldn’t write their names in the Cyrillic letter", he said.

Mr. Stankovic said that he had had talks with the local self-government.

We're trying, as he says, through our regular activities, to reduce the problem to what upsets the citizens, such as the economic situation, and employment, while we think that everything else is a political game, which we don’t wish to be a part of. He said that it was conveyed, through talks, to the leaders of political parties in South Serbia that the focus was on economic prosperity, while political issues were to be resolved in accordance with the government’s obligations towards ethnic minorities.

He said that an investment fair would be held in South Serbia in the second half of April.

"It is our obligation to try everything to improve the economic development of South Serbia, and we expect the participation of ambassadors and friends of South Serbia, and other countries that have expressed a desire to invest here ", said Mr. Stankovic, adding that the fair would be held in cooperation with the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.

Source: RTS