Albin Kurti has once again banned a shipment of Serbian dinars at the Jarinje administrative crossing point in Kosovo, throwing crucial financial transactions into disarray and sparking grave concern among Serbs who rely heavily on support from Serbia’s budget.

According to the sources directly familiar with the today’s incident, Kosovo police was threatening to arrest representatives of the National Bank of Serbia and the licensed British company “Henderson,” responsible for transporting money to Kosovo and Metohija via established legal protocols.

According to the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, money has been dispatched following well-established procedures in place for decades. Serbian dinar shipments arriving at Jarinje, accompanied by necessary confirmations, are received by the authorized British company “Henderson” and transported to vaults in Leposavic.

Despite promises from PM Albin Kurti to allow for a “transition period” for dinars to be received by communities in need, their entry has been prohibited today.

Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Peter Petkovic, said that today’s incident show that Albin Kurti’s promise of “transition period” is just lip service designed to decieve international community who have already warned him that his assault on the basic conditions for the survival of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija has crossed a line and went too far.

“Kurti’s claims about the dinar not being prohibited in Kosovo and Metohija are outright lies and shameless propaganda,” Petkovic declared, underscoring the adverse impact of Kurti’s actions on the lives of Serbian people in Kosovo.

Today’s ban of transportation of Serbian dinar however, is not an isolated incident. On February 7th, another Serbian dinar shipment met a similar fate at the Jarinje crossing point, with no official explanation or formal notification of ban provided.

Earlier this week, in an exclusive interview with The Pavlovic Today, following the urgent UN Security Council session on Kosovo’s government decision to suspend the Serbian dinar, the President of Serbia Aleksander Vucic noted that Albin Kurti falsely accused Serbia of transporting sacks of money into northern Kosovo to finance various criminal activities. The President clarified that, in fact, this activity is conducted by the authorized British company “Henderson.”

Asked about Albin Kurti’s reasoning behind deploying law enforcement to intercept the British company and whether he had a chance to discuss this issue with PM Rishi Sunak, Vucic disclosed some specifics.

“No, I didn’t speak to them because I believe that they would have supported Kurti,” Vucic said bluntly. 

— Over the British company?

“Yeah, they will say, ‘Okay, they’re gonna transfer euros in the future for you.’ And it’s something, you know, because whatever we do, they have always been on the Kurti side,” Vucic remarked, highlighting the UK’s traditional support for Albanians in Kosovo.

“But even they, I need to be very fair and admit, even they were saying that they were not very happy with Kurti,” Vucic referred to  the statement by the Ambassador James Kariuki at the UN Security Council meeting on Kosovo. Kariuki condemned the Kosovo government for showing “insufficient regard” for the impact on Kosovo’ minority communities.

 “At least they were not happy with the technical issues,” said Vucic of the British statement to the Security Council.

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Ksenija Pavlovic is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Pavlovic Today, The Chief White House Correspondent. Pavlovic was a Teaching Fellow and Doctoral Fellow in the Political Science department at...

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