BELGRADE: The European Union on Tuesday condemned comments from a Serbian government minister who said she would “ethnically cleanse” Kosovo if she had been in power during the 1990s conflict.
Speaking to Serbian television station Kurir over the weekend, Public Administration Minister Snezana Paunovic said she would strip Kosovo of Albanians if she had been in the place of strongman Slobodan Milosevic during the 1998-1999 war.
“Not by liquidating them in the way they have sought to ethnically cleanse Kosovo to this day, but by ensuring that anyone who feels less like a citizen... leaves and goes to their homeland,” the minister, who was born in Kosovo, said.
Responding to a journalist’s question about the comment, EU spokeswoman Anitta Hipper said, “there is no place in Europe for rhetoric justifying and advocating ethnic cleansing.”
“Such statements run counter to the values of human dignity, reconciliation, accountability,” Hipper told a press briefing in Brussels.
