Kosovo declared the Serbian Minister for Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Snezhana Paunović, an undesirable person, permanently prohibiting her from entering and passing through its territory.
The decision was announced by the acting Interior Minister, Xelal Sveçla, who said that her statements bring back the rhetoric of ethnic cleansing, from which, according to him, Serbia has never distanced itself.
Sveçla emphasized that any attempt to revive such ideologies or to threaten Kosovo will receive a determined legal and institutional response.
The reaction comes after Paunović declared that, if he had been in place of Slobodan Milosevic in 1998, he would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo, while he later confirmed that he does not back down from his position and supports the policy of the Socialist Party of Serbia.
The statements of the Serbian minister were also condemned by the European Union, where the spokeswoman of the European Commission, Anitta Hipper, emphasized that in Europe there is no place for rhetoric that justifies or promotes ethnic cleansing.
Even the Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, was shocked and declared that there should be zero tolerance for such statements, hoping that they do not represent the official position of the Government of Serbia.
The war in Kosovo during the years 1998-1999 left over 13,000 civilian victims and thousands missing, while senior political and military leaders of the former Yugoslavia were convicted by the Hague Tribunal for crimes against the Albanian population.
