"Why was no one at Srebrenica Genocide anniversary?"

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Serbia’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Leader Cedomir Jovanovic said he is talking to everyone about the Coalition for Peace, which he proposes and that it is not just a pre-election project. He asked who is against the idea of reaching an agreement on Kosovo? The opposition’s Alliance for Serbia, he said, does not have a solution for Kosovo.

Recalling the current political scene in Serbia, he said that Serbia needs an alternative but that the current opposition is not particularly visible.

“I am not against (the Serbian President Aleksandar) Vucic negotiating with (Hashim) Thaci (the Kosovo President), and if he talks to Thaci, I will support it. But if his policy is only to buy time, then I will be against that,” he stressed. “I think that the September meeting (between the two presidents) is crucial, and the EU expects us to find a solution before their (EU Parliament's) election, which is in May next year.”

Speaking about the opposition's decision in terms of the Kosovo status, he said that they do not have a solution. The opposition, he noted, had advocated that same Kosovo policy of years. The opposition's stance on the Kosovo issue is that the Constitution of Serbia and the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 must be respected. The UN Resolution 1244 had authorised an international civil and military presence in Kosovo and established the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). 

The LDP leader stated that he disagrees with the fact that top state officials did not go to Srebrenica to mark the anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide of 1995.  

“I bowed before two bodies of a married couple who were 22 and 23 years old at the time of their death. She was killed in the sixth month of pregnancy and I bowed before her,” he added. “I don’t think that any normal Serb would approve something like that, why do we lie to ourselves, how far can we get by lying to ourselves… What is our perspective if we stay the way we are?”

The biggest problem, in his opinion, is not the apathy in Serbia, but the feeling of hopelessness. There was once hope that by (the former Serbian President Slobodan) Milosevic’s departure from office things would get better, but he concluded that there is no such thing today.