Prishtina has again announced that it will apply for membership in UNESCO. Kosovo's Minister of Culture Hjrula Ceku stated in an interview with Gazeta Ekspres that "there is not even a legitimate reason why Kosovo should not be a member of UNESCO."
"In terms of cultural heritage, we are consolidating institutional structures and policies in order to be as technologically ready as possible at the time of application for membership," he said and announced that this would happen at the "UNESCO General Conference held in the second half of 2023." .
He also said that "Orthodox churches in Kosovo are an exceptional cultural treasure of all citizens of Kosovo, as well as of all humanity", as well as that they possess one of the most advanced models in the world for the protection of Orthodox cultural heritage and that they regularly undertake to temples and all believers enjoy these rights that arise from the legal framework without hindrance. "Kosovo has done a lot over the years to increase the level of security, restoration and functioning of Orthodox churches."
The Serbian side, justifiably, does not agree with this assessment.
Petar Petković, director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, wrote on his Twitter account that Kosovo's cultural heritage is only the house of the Nazi collaborator Džafer Deva, and emphasized that "the holy places of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija are Serbian" and that Pristina has nothing to do with them "to the extent that you destroyed over 135 of them, including those on the UNESCO list. the church of Samodreža, which was turned into a toilet, the church of the Holy Archangels, whose restoration was prohibited, and the Dečani monastery, whose land was confiscated.
At the beginning of last year, Pristina had the same intentions. At that time, it was announced that all the files needed for candidacy to UNESCO will be prepared soon.
In 2015, Kosovo tried to be admitted to UNESCO for the first time, but did not receive the necessary two-thirds majority at the General Conference of that organization. Then the vice-president of the European Parliament, Ulrike Lunaček, stated that the Serbian religious and cultural heritage will be best protected if Kosovo becomes a member of UNESCO.
However, after the presentation of Ivica Dačić, the head of Serbian diplomacy at the time, at the General Conference of UNESCO ("why Serbian religious and cultural heritage was not well protected until now"), Serbia's appeal to postpone the debate on Kosovo's membership was accepted.
In 2006, the Visoki Dečani and Gračanica monasteries, the Patriarchate of Peć and the Church of Our Lady of Ljeviška were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List under the unified name - Medieval Monuments in Kosovo and Metohija. Prishtina tried to rename them to "Kosovo cultural monuments", which after the stormy reaction of Belgrade, UNESCO did not adopt, and entered these four cultural monuments on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
S.Ć. /Today
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