Visoki Decani Monastery. Photo: EPA/ Nenad Kojadinovic

The decision to halt construction of the road connecting Decan/Decani with Plav in Montenegro, following the demands of the nearby Serbian Orthodox monastery, has caused conflicting reactions in Kosovo.

Visoki Decani Monastery protested over the construction of the road, claiming that it was being done within its five-km Special Protective Zone, SPZ.

The Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, urged diplomats to check for themselves that the route of the road had existed before, in order to avoid problems and misinformation.

“There is misinformation about the work on one of Decan’s roads,” Haradinaj wrote on Facebook on Monday.

“I invite diplomats to go to the scene, to see the situation, and to be convinced that the road that is being renovated existed before,” Haradinaj wrote.

He wrote that the government was obliged to repair and manage roads throughout Kosovo, adding that “Kosovo citizens have always lived in harmony with minority communities, respecting the religious and cultural heritage of all without distinction”.

Confirming that the work had stopped in the meantime, the OSCE mission in Kosovo welcomed the decision on Saturday.

“We recall that any road work inside the SPZ must be agreed through the Implementation and Monitoring Council, IMC. We call on all stakeholders to seek a mutually acceptable solution,” the statement issued by the OSCE read.

The chief of the European Union office in Kosovo, Nataliya Apostolova, and the US Ambassador to Pristina, Greg Delawie, also supported the decision.

But the local authorities oppose the halting of the work on the road. The local MP, from the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, Rasim Selmanaj, said the monastery was damaging the area’s interests.

“Obstacles are unacceptable and not healthy for the monastery,” Selmanaj, a former mayor of Decan, wrote on Facebook. The decision was also condemned by other parties in the Decan municipality.

Kosovo’s Minister of Infrastructure, Pal Lekaj, said the project did not infringe on the Special Protective Zones and was five kilometres away from the monastery.

On Monday, he said that the road issue was being politicised. “It’s wrong for politics to intervene here, in particular Belgrade’s politics,” Lekaj said.

Visoki Decani is one of the most important Serbian religious and cultural heritage sites in Kosovo.

Construction began under Serbian King Stefan Uros, III Decanski in 1327 and he was buried in the still incomplete monastery in 1331. It remains a rare outpost of Serbian culture in western Kosovo.

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