The Serbian-language online media outlet "Kosovo-online.com" published an article yesterday (October 5) claiming that Belgrade has managed to prevent Kosovo's application for membership in the Council of Europe (CoE) from being on the agenda of the last meeting (October 5) of the Committee of Ministers at the member-level in Strasbourg.
This information portal based this claim on, as stated by diplomatic sources.
However, this claim made by this online medium was rejected by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora (MFA), Kreshnik Ahmeti, saying that Kosovo's application was not foreseen on the agenda of the last meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
Link to the article published on the portal "Kosovo-online.com":
Excerpt from the article published on "Kosovo-online.com" translated into Albanian:
For the moment, Belgrade has prevented Kosovo's application for membership in the Council of Europe from being on the agenda today.
With intensive diplomatic efforts, Belgrade has managed to ensure that Kosovo's request for accession to the Council of Europe is not on the agenda of today's meeting of the Committee of Ministers at the deputy level in Strasbourg, RTS reports.
Serbia, as Kosova Online learns from diplomatic sources, has strongly opposed Kosovo's request being on the agenda of today's meeting in Strasbourg, because this would imply that it is a recognized state, which is not the case because UN Security Council Resolution 1244 confirms Serbia's territorial integrity and sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija as its autonomous province, and the 12 members of the EC did not recognize Kosovo's unilaterally recognized independence.
In response to Radio Kosova, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kreshnik Ahmeti, said that Kosovo was not on the agenda of today's Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, at the level of ambassadors. (see here)
The claim made by "Kosovo-online.com" does not match the statement of the head of the Serbian mission to the Council of Europe, Aleksandra Đurović, who in an interview given to Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) did not say that Serbia had managed to remove Kosovo's request for accession to the CoE from the agenda of this meeting, but that, according to her, this could happen during the next meetings, and according to her, Serbia will try to prevent such a thing. (see here)
Excerpt from Djurovic's statement given to RTS, translated into Albanian:
"Every Wednesday we hold meetings of the Committee of Ministers and we are constantly faced with some announcements that this will be considered in one of the next meetings. We are very vigilant here and we are very active in trying to prevent this from happening," said Djurović.
She believes that this will not happen before October 19, when the report on respect for human rights in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija is expected, which should be presented by the Commissioner for Human Rights in the EC.
"I think that until then there will be no attempt to raise that issue in the form of putting this item on the agenda. But in several meetings after that, we will certainly be in a situation to prevent such attempts with intensive diplomatic activity," concluded Djurović.
Analyze:
The Serbian-language portal "Kosovo-online.com" has published an article claiming that Serbia has managed to remove Kosovo's application for membership in the Council of Europe from the agenda.
However, this was denied by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora (MFA), Kreshnik Ahmeti, who called it another piece of disinformation from Serbia, as according to him, Kosovo was not on the agenda of the last meeting (October 5) of the Committee of Ministers at the Council of Europe.
This claim made by "Kosovo-online.com" does not match the statement of the head of the Serbian mission to the Council of Europe, Aleksandra Đurović, who did not say that Serbia had managed to remove Kosovo's request for accession to the Council of Europe from the agenda of this meeting, as presented in this media outlet, but that according to her, this could happen during the next meetings and that Serbia would try to prevent such a thing.
Based on the working methodology, hibrid.info assesses this article from "Kosovo-online.com" as "Unverified Content".
Reasoning:
The “Unverified” rating is given to those media reports that do not provide sufficient information to confirm the claims made in the report, and which have not been able to confirm the same due to the lack or non-possession of reliable sources.