Rašić admits „mixing up“ Dečani land decision with Patriarch Porfirije’s visit

Kosovo’s Minister for Communities and Returns, Nenad Rašić, has acknowledged that he „mistakenly conflated“ two separate events when he recently claimed that Prime Minister Albin Kurti decided to implement a long-delayed court ruling on land belonging to the Visoki Dečani monastery at his personal request.

In a statement issued on Monday, Rašić said he had inadvertently “permuted” events while recalling a conversation with Kurti, explaining that the remark he attributed to the land decision actually referred to a different episode — the approval of Serbian Patriarch Porfirije’s visit to Kosovo in 2023.

“During a podcast appearance on Radio Goraždevac I said that, when the decision was made to return land to the Dečani monastery, Prime Minister Kurti told me: ‘We did this because of you.’ That statement was not entirely accurate,” Rašić said. “I had mixed it up with a conversation that took place earlier, during the approval of the visit of the Serbian patriarch, when that sentence was said.”

Rašić described the error as unintentional, attributing it to the passage of several years since the events in question.

“My mistake was unintentional, and the confusion occurred because several years have passed since then. I apologize if my statement created confusion,” he said.

Controversial remarks

Rašić’s clarification follows a wave of criticism triggered by comments he made in a recent interview with Radio Goraždevac. In that interview, he suggested that his persistent lobbying had convinced Kurti to implement a Constitutional Court ruling confirming the monastery’s ownership of disputed land.

“I will say, perhaps immodestly, that it happened thanks to my persistent insistence,” Rašić said at the time. “For years I explained why this was important. In the end, the prime minister called me before the government session and said: ‘I’ve thought about it a lot. We will do it — but you should know, because of you.’”

After KoSSev published a separate report highlighting the statement, the remarks were widely reported in Kosovo’s media and quickly prompted a barrage of criticism from opposition politicians, who accused Kurti of treating state territory as a matter of personal discretion.

Former prime minister Avdullah Hoti said the statement stripped away what he called Kurti’s “deceptive rhetoric,” while other opposition figures warned that, if true, such an approach would amount to treating Kosovo’s territory “as private property.”

The Association of Former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters also condemned the claim, arguing it showed the government’s “true face” and accusing it of undermining national interests.

Government response

Late Sunday, the Kosovo government moved to contain the controversy. Government spokesperson Arlind Manxhuka said Rašić had simply been confused and had meant to refer to the approval of Patriarch Porfirije’s visit for Orthodox Christmas in 2023.

“What confused Minister Nenad Rašić was the acceptance of his request for the visit of Patriarch Porfirije for Orthodox Christmas in 2023,” Manxhuka said.

He also reiterated that the implementation of the Constitutional Court’s 2016 ruling on the Visoki Dečani monastery land was carried out in 2024 solely in the context of Kosovo’s bid to join the Council of Europe.

According to Manxhuka, the issue became a key condition in the membership process after it was highlighted in a report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dora Bakoyannis. In March 2024, the Kosovo government ordered the country’s cadastral agency to register the monastery’s land, formally implementing the ruling eight years after it had been issued.

Long-running dispute

The Constitutional Court ruling, delivered in 2016 after a lengthy legal battle, confirmed the Serbian Orthodox monastery’s ownership of around 24 hectares of land near Dečani.

For years, the decision remained unimplemented despite repeated calls from international diplomats and institutions urging Kosovo authorities to enforce it.

The government finally acted in March 2024, when Prime Minister Kurti acknowledged that progress toward Council of Europe membership required implementation of the ruling.

At the time, Kurti said the government had been clearly told by international partners that it faced a choice: implement the court decision or risk having Kosovo’s membership bid removed from the agenda.