“France not denying Serbian identity”

Source: B92

BELGRADE -- The French Embassy in Belgrade has stated that Paris is not denying Serbian identity of Orthodox monasteries in Kosovo.

“France fully understands the importance of the religious heritage in Kosovo that belongs to the Serbian Orthodox Church,” the embassy said in a statement.

UNESCO Committee for the Protection of World Cultural Heritage is a technical body and as such it is not a place for a political debate about to which country some cultural heritage belongs to, as it was explicitly stated by the 1972 World Heritage Protection Convention, the French Embassy believes.

“The draft resolution sent to the UNESCO aimed at protecting this extraordinary heritage,” the statement reads.

“Since this is an international organization, the draft was status neutral and UNMIK was mentioned in each paragraph. Our sincere efforts to reach an apolitical draft that would be neutral regarding the status did not yield results and we are very sorry about it,” the French Embassy pointed out in the statement.

Serbian Government Media Office Director Milivoje Mihajlović said Friday that the “Kosovo heritage thesis" represented a failed attempt to falsify history.