Prishtina, 18 April, 2024
Dear representatives of the media,
Dear citizens,
We just finished the Government meeting. This is a jubilee meeting, because it was the 200th in a row. With the 15 decisions we made today, the total number of decisions has reached 1769.
I am here together with the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Xhelal Sveçla in front of you. Before the Government meeting, we were also together at the graduation ceremony of 445 police cadets. The Kosovo Police is increasing and being renewed. Boys and girls, Albanians, Serbs, Bosnian, Turks, Egyptians, Ashkali and Roma, citizens of Kosovo, from all possible professions, have chosen to serve the citizens, for their rights and security, their protection and the implementation of legality everywhere and all the time. I am taking this opportunity to once again congratulate them on their graduation and thank them for their willingness to serve.
With Minister Sveçla, we are also in front of you because of yesterday’s events – the detention of hundreds of our citizens by the Serbian authorities at the border points. This vindictive and despicable action is exactly what represents Serbia. I call once again to our citizens to follow carefully and actively all announcements from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, as well as from the Kosovo Police that are related to the transition between Serbia at the crossings different borderline. Also, I invite the citizens, in case they pass through Serbia and become the subject of provocations or mistreatment by the Serbian authorities, to keep calm and contact the emergency numbers published by our Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Serbia is looking for tensions, because normalcy does not suit them. Normality means peace, security and tranquility in the region. The more there is peace, security and tranquility in the region, the more irrelevant Serbia becomes. Therefore, it always acts in the opposite direction.
While after more than 20 hours of arrest and mistreatment, the vast majority of citizens continued their journey, yesterday five citizens of the Republic, members of the Kosovo Police, were detained even further. Of them, four from the Serbian community and one Albanian. During the Government meeting, we were informed about the release of four policemen, but not Deputy Director Jankovic. So, among those who were detained early on and continue to be detained in these moments that we are here together, is the deputy director of the Kosovo Police, Mr. Dejan Jankovic. He was supposed to be at the police cadet graduation ceremony today. He deserved to be at the ceremony today. As deputy director for Human Resources, he is directly involved in the preparation of this 59th generation of the Kosovo Police, which includes 37 police officers from the Serbian community. Citizens of Kosovo from the Serbian community who want to live better by being integrated, we support and help them. Kosovo Serbs who want to live and should live better also by serving their fellow citizens.
The bans yesterday were made on the day of our commemoration of the genocidal crime of Serbia on civilians killed and burned in Paklek, Drenica, and also those killed and missing in Rudnica, Serbia, from Old Cikatova, also in Drenica.
Mainly responsible for many massacres in the Drenica region and for the fate of many missing persons in these villages is the 37th Motorized Brigade of the Yugoslav Army.
Although we made an agreement on May 2, 2023 on the issue of missing persons during the war, the archives, files of crimes against our people, which are kept closed in Belgrade, are still not being opened. Especially for the massacres in Drenica, it is necessary to open the archive, the closed file of the 37th Motorized Brigade of the Yugoslav Army.
Therefore, I again call on the international partners from Serbia, as responsible for the murder and disappearance of our loved ones, to demand a full disclosure of their fate and justice for the victims and their families. It is the right of the families to know, but it is also the obligation of international factors to put pressure on Belgrade, which failed to drown the truth in mass cemeteries and lakes in Serbia, but continues to do so with the files closed in the archives that he owns in Belgrade.
We reiterate our request for the immediate and unconditional release of the Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police, Mr. Dejan Jankovic.
Now, I am passing the floor to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Xhelal Sveçla, and then we will be able to answer your questions.
Thank you.
Last modified: April 22, 2024