BELGRADE — Ministry for Kosovo State Secretary Oliver Ivanović has reacted to statements coming from Kosovo Albanian politicians regarding Serbia’s southern area.

Ivanović called on the international community to react to the Kosovo Albanian assembly in Priština President Jakup Krasniqi’s statement that ethnic Albanians in the municipalities of Bujanovac and Preševo were “ready to join Kosovo”.

“Serbia will not exchange something that is hers for something else that is hers, nor is the concept of partition and exchange of territory on the table at all from our side. We have absolutely rejected that idea,” he stated on Wednesday.

Ivanović also said he was worried that the Kosovo politicians’ warmongering did not meet with reaction from the international community officials in the province.

“They seem to be forgetting that such or similar moves in the past caused a lot of complications, I won’t say, conflicts. Therefore, the least we can expect is for the EU and KFOR and NATO representatives, for the representatives of UNMIK and EULEX, to condemn this and make it clear to Jakup Krasniqi and to everyone else, that these stories should not be placed in public that they are damaging and dangerous,” said Ivanović.

Serbia’s stance on Feith plan unchanged

Ivanović said on Thursday that early local elections could be held in Kosovska Mitrovica at the end of April, or the beginning of May, “which would make completely insubstantial the plan of Chief of International Civilian Office (ICO) Peter Feith for integration of northern Kosovo”.

“Feith’s plan for integration of the north of Kosovo into the interim Kosovo institutions has no chance to succeed, but it could provoke tensions and unnecessary conflicts in the north, which is why Serbia insists on the soonest possible elections in Kosovska Mitrovica,” Ivanović told the Serbian state broadcaster RTS.