Acting Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla announced today that he had declared Snezana Paunoviç, Serbia’s Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, persona non grata, permanently banning her from entering and transiting through Kosovo’s territory.
The administrative measure followed statements made by the Serbian official, which Sveçla interpreted as an extension of policies of ethnic cleansing against the Albanian population.
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In a statement, he noted that Paunoviç had reaffirmed a project from which official Belgrade has never distanced itself: the ethnic cleansing of Albanians. According to him, Slobodan Milosevic, whom he described as the butcher of the Balkans, demonstrated this in modern times.
Sveçla stressed that although the language used by the minister may sound familiar, it reflects the continuity of a state orientation that for decades has generated violence, crimes and attempts to erase Albanians from their ancestral lands.
He described as intolerable the hatred expressed in threatening terms against Kosovo’s constitutional order and sovereignty, calling for this approach to be strongly condemned by democratic states and societies that defend peace and human rights.
Sveçla said he made the “non grata” declaration in his capacity as head of the Interior Ministry, describing Paunoviç as an undesirable person permanently barred from entering or transiting through the Republic of Kosovo.
At the end of his response, the interior minister declared that the period when Albanians were oppressed and massacred had ended once and for all. He stressed that Kosovo is a sovereign and democratic state, with strong institutions that safeguard the constitutional order and the security of every citizen. Any attempt to revive ideologies of ethnic cleansing, he warned, would be met with a firm, legal and institutional response.
