Commenting on another action to demolish buildings considered illegal, which took place today near the Gazivode Lake on the border between Serbia and Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that Pristina wants to demolish the villas of all Serbs in Kosovo and is constantly trying to falsify history, Serbian media reported, BTA reported.
Vucic said that by demolishing the buildings, the official authorities in the former Serbian province are trying to impose themselves by force on those (Kosovo Serbs) who were loyal to the Serbian state.
As part of today's action, the hotel was also demolished “Jezero“.
The Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police for Northern Kosovo, Veton Elshani, confirmed that the law enforcement agencies are assisting the company “Ibar-Lepenc“ and the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure in this process.
According to information from the “Koha Ditore“ newspaper, the action was taken after the expiration of the terms set by “Ibar-Lepenc“ a deadline within which users of the site had to leave the property, which the company claims was “usurped“.
The owner of the hotel, Yordan Jaksic, told the Serbian editorial office of the regional television channel En1 that he had invested in this facility for thirty years and that he had managed to remove belongings and furniture from the hotel immediately before the action.
On the Kosovo side, the artificial lake Gazivode is inhabited mainly by Serbs, and 11 villas near it, which were declared illegally built on lands of “Ibar-Lepenc“, were demolished last week. The European Union Office in Pristina and the British and German embassies in Kosovo criticized the Kosovo authorities for these actions and stated that the legal procedure was not followed.
Regarding today's action near the artificial lake in Kosovo, Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Đurić called on the EU, KFOR and OSCE to react to "the latest pressure from the government in Pristina, which violates the property rights of Serbs and the right to freedom of religion."
In his article in Ex today, Đurić stated that "Albin Kurti's government is once again showing disrespect for the rule of law and the rights of Kosovo Serbs."
„In the last few days alone, we have seen: the demolition of Serbian buildings on Lake Gazivode, despite ongoing legal proceedings and EU warnings; "illegal construction work in the UNESCO-protected area such as the Visoki Decani Monastery, which is in violation of Kosovo law and the 2020 agreement; and new administrative barriers targeting visits to Serbian shrines in Kosovo, as well as preventing Serbian Orthodox pilgrims from visiting these sites," Djuric said.
He said this represented a deliberate pattern of pressure on Serb property rights, freedom of religion and access to UNESCO-protected sites.