Office for Kosovo and Metohija
Government of the Republic of Serbia

Nikolić speaking at UN: Admission of Kosovo to UNESCO would set a dangerous precedent

President of the Republic of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolić, in his speech given at the United Nations Headquarters, cautioned that possible admission of Kosovo to UNESCO would “set a dangerous precedent and create space which would be conducive to legalization of violence over national, cultural and religious identity of any people and anywhere”, and urged the members of this global organization to stand up to such an initiative.

At the plenary debate of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly, Nikolić spoke about the requests to admit Kosovo to UNESCO membership, and called upon the UN to preserve their credibility and oppose the initiative submitted by Albania along with 44 other countries.

“I am confident that, as responsible statesmen and honourable men and women, you will reject any injustice and evil against Serbia which would be done by accepting such inscrupulous initiative and which could, in the future, have a spillover effect on other peoples and States”, Nikolić stated.

He recalled that Serbia is the only country in Europe which, in addition to the seizure of a part of its territory, banishment of its people, their unpunished slaying and harvesting of their organs, now has to undergo attempts of kidnapping of its cultural heritage which is under the protection of UNESCO, and went on to present the facts about the destruction of Orthodox temples and other facilities in Kosovo and Metohija which unfolded after the deployment of the UN and KFOR missions in 1999.

“During this period, the Albanian terrorists systematically destroyed any traces of the spirituality and culture and of centuries-long life of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija. The 31st UNESCO Conference stated that crime against cultural heritage was committed in Kosovo and Metohija,” Nikolić underlined.

According to President Nikolić, “not only Serbian, but also European culture, the world’s collective memory, are preserved in Kosovo and Metohija, as an important civilizational step in the cultural evolution of man on planet Earth”, and it is therefore important that Serbia , as a full member of UNESCO, continues to be “the guardian of its, and the world’s, patrimony”.

By defending the right of Serbia to continue to preserve and proudly accentuate its identity and cultural heritage, as it has done over the past eleven centuries, by fending against the unscrupulous intentions to highjack and ascribe to others one’s heritage, we are defending the very underlying principles of international law and human justice, also an mainstay of UNESCO.

“I therefore call upon all the presidents not to allow that the Serbian people be deprived of their soul, their essence and their monasteries in Kosovo and Metohija, our spiritual backbone, and have them declared as cultural heritage of the Albanian people in Kosovo and Metohija. Simply, this is neither truth nor an historical and scientific fact. It is not justice,” Nikolić underscored.

Nikolić said that Serbia is engaged in the dialogue with the representatives of the administration in Priština, and that it would fulfill all its obligations under UNSC Resolution 1244 (1999) as well as those stemming from agreements reached in Brussels thus far, but it will “never recognize the independence of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija, a part of its territory which is tied to Serbia’s very existence.”