Written by: Festim Rizanaj
Petar Petkovic, director of the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia, has claimed that the Prime Minister of Kosovo and the leader of the Vetëvendosje Movement, Albin Kurti, has threatened the Serbian people and Serbia, at the start of the campaign for the February 9 parliamentary elections in Kosovo.
"Petkovic: Kurti started his electoral campaign with threats to the Serbian people and Serbia", is the title of the content published in website of this office on January 11th.
What else did Petkovic claim?
"As we have warned several times, Albin Kurti started his electoral campaign tonight again with threats to the Serbian people and Serbia, but as our people would say, with empty barrels!
What Kurti is using for the sake of his electoral campaign is not an army or police, but a so-called non-existent army that is not allowed to set foot in northern Kosovo and a criminal parapolice gang whose peak career is 'selfies' in northern Kosovo and the intimidation of Serbian women, just as Kurti's political peak is drinking coffee in northern Kosovo, which he always misses, while those with long barrels guard it in an empty Albanian cafe.
But when the threats come from a proven Serb hater, who dreams of a so-called Greater Albania, then these threats should raise alarm in the international community, because someone who threatens with some kind of army or police is one step away from provoking conflict and a new escalation, and with his crazy policies, he could be guilty of many disasters for our region.
In response, Kurti further humiliated his voters at a pre-election rally and confirmed that "Kosovo is only so-called, because apart from the Albanian flag, there was no flag of secessionist creation anywhere."
What's wrong with this claim?
Petkovic has not used any basis for his claims. He has also not provided any facts on the issue of intimidation of Serbian women by the Kosovo Police. He has repeated without basis that the presence of security authorities in the north is a threat to Serbs.
The Vetëvendosje Movement organized its first central rally in the campaign in Gjakova on the evening of January 11. There, Kurti ADDRESS mentioned Serbia, but not the Serb citizens of Kosovo.
"There are two parties that have governed the longest, sometimes together and sometimes separately. But which have done us the greatest damage in relation to our bad neighborhood. We cannot change geography and history, but we can change the future by working now. One of these parties, the LDK, is such that the president of Serbia says 'we understand', and the other party, the PDK, is such that the president of Serbia says 'we are not problematic guys'. But our coalition, Vetëvendosje, Guxo and Alternativa, tells him as he is, a minister of Milosevic, whose state and criminal apparatus will have no place because we will follow him from corner to corner in the independent, democratic and progressive Republic of Kosovo", he said.
"Honored participants, dear attendees, for the youth we have employment, for women we have equality, for children we have allowances, for the opposition we have the opposition, for Serbia we have the Police and the Army and dialogue, for the elderly we have pensions and for everyone we have healthcare", said Kurti, who accuses Serbia of the attack in Banjska and the explosion in Ibër-Lepenc.
Meanwhile, on January 12, Kurti published a Photography on Facebook from a cafe with the description: "A 70-something and a dessert north of the Ibar River, just before the big rally at the 'Minatori' Gym."
Hibrid.info has also on other occasions dealt with similar statements by Petkovic and other Serbian officials, linking various events or statements by Prime Minister Kurti with "threats to Serbs" (see here and here).
Analyze:
Without basing it on facts, the director of the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia, Petar Petkovic, has said that Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti has started the campaign for the February 9 parliamentary elections with "threats to Serbs and Serbia."
Hibrid.info covered the first Vetëvendosje rally in this campaign. There, Kurti did not mention Kosovo Serbs, while promising to "pursue Milosevic's state apparatus."
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info evaluates Petkovic's statement as a "conspiracy theory".
Reasoning:
"Conspiracy theories" are considered to be informational content that contains a false or unverifiable description of a phenomenon, event or person, presenting it as part or the result of a secret plan ("conspiracy"). The characteristic of these contents is that they present a series of claims, presented as facts, between which cause-effect relationships are established, without providing any reliable evidence.