ISLAMABAD : Kosovo has declared Serbia’s Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government Snezhana Paunovic persona non grata after controversial comments in which she said she would have pursued the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo if she had been in power during the 1998–1999 conflict.
Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla announced the decision, saying the order had been signed and submitted to relevant institutions. He said Paunovic’s remarks represented a continuation of policies that had contributed to violence and crimes against Albanians in Kosovo.
Svecla said Paunovic had been permanently banned from entering or transiting through Kosovo, adding that the country would respond through legal and institutional measures to any rhetoric supporting ethnic cleansing or threatening its sovereignty.
The Serbian minister made the comments during a television interview in Belgrade, saying that if she had been in the position of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1998, she would have carried out ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, though she claimed she meant it in a different way than the actions attributed to Serbian forces during the war.
The remarks also drew criticism from the European Union. EU spokesperson Anitta Hipper said there was “no place in Europe for rhetoric justifying and advocating for ethnic cleansing.”
Paunovic later said she was the target of a propaganda campaign and described her comments as an analysis while maintaining her position.
Milosevic, who led Serbia during the Kosovo conflict, died in 2006 while on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on charges including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
