The MTS company has legal mechanisms it can use to overturn the senseless decision of the Kosovo Business Registration Agency, but due to its unilateral actions, Pristina may suffer serious consequences in the field of telecommunications, the Kosovo Office announced after the Kosovo Ministry of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade confirmed that the license of MTS doo has been revoked.
„At the time when MTS doo regulated its operations in Kosovo and Metohija as per the agreements reached in Brussels and all regulations valid in Pristina, procedurally speaking everything was in order,“ emphasized the head of this Office, Petar Petkovic.
„I remind you that the issue of the functioning of telecommunications in Serbian communities in Kosovo and Metohija is regulated by a series of documents agreed upon in the EU-mediated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina. Therefore, on September 8, 2013, Belgrade and Pristina reached an Agreement in the field of telecommunications, which was elaborated in the later phase of negotiations through the provisions of the Action Plan initialed on August 25, 2015, the EU Mediator’s Conclusions of November 13, 2016 and the statement issued by the EU mediator in support of the adoption of the Conclusions in order to specify the agreed provisions, and then on November 18, 2016, the Supplement to the Conclusions was adopted in Brussels.“
Behind these arrangements lie hundreds of hours of negotiations, he noted, adding that “capricious Albin Kurti is destroying all of it in an attack of willfulness“.
According to Petkovic, the Kosovo PM is doing so in order to once again demonstrate that he is not bound by anything agreed in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.
This is not only a violation of the inviolable rights of a company to unhindered operation, but above all an attack on the rights of the Serbian people, he argued.
„Using a senseless administrative argument to prevent MTS from functioning, Pristina actually wanted to realize a more far-reaching and dangerous goal than simply blocking the work of one business entity,“ Petkovic said.
„And that goal is to disable the mobile connections of the Serbian people in Kosovo with the rest of Serbia and to completely isolate the current users of MTS services by canceling the TV signal and the Internet.“
In this way, Kurti also belittles the efforts made by the EU and its mediators in the process of normalizing relations between Belgrade and Pristina in “the most primitive way,” Petkovic stressed.
„Belgrade will not tolerate the Pristina’s violence and intransigence in the attack on the rights of the company MTS doo in Kosovo, a subsidiary of Telekom,“ claims Petar Petkovic.
Furthermore, he went on to accuse Kurti of making the first move, which was also what he did in „previous provocations and escalations“, therefore „responsibility for all consequences that could result from such demonstrations of force will lie solely on him.“
„About the latest act of willfulness by Albin Kurti and his henchmen, as well as about our positions on this matter, we informed all relevant foreign interlocutors through diplomatic means on the first day, including the EU mediator in the dialogue and the Quint countries, demanding an immediate reaction, and our country will, as it has done from the very beginning, continue to protect valid agreements, law and justice together with MTS and Telekom Srbija and their management.“
Finally, Petkovic warned that if the Kosovo Prime Minister was allowed to continue „on the path of violating the Brussels agreements“, he could „in every sense“ return to the period that preceded the start of the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.
Only one more small step separates that period from a full escalation on the ground
Read more:
Pristina confirms suspension of MTS doo’s license, Telekom criticizes the decision
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