Kosovo Serb University Not in Danger, Belgrade

Serbian officials have rushed to quash rumours that the only Serbian university in Kosovo could be placed under the control of the Kosovo government.

Pavle Dimitrijevic, head of the Bureau for Social Research, BIRODI, told BIRN that rumours that the University of Pristina could be integated into independent Kosovo's institutions were false.

"The Serbian Office for Kosovo and Metohija ... is just proposing restructuring [the university] within the system of Serbia," Dimitrijevic said.

On Saturday, media outlets in both Belgrade and Pristina reported that an employee of the university had demanded the dismissal of Marko Djuric, director of Serbia's office for Kosovo, for proposing to integrate the university into the Kosovo system.

Djuric rubbished the reports on Monday, saying that Serbia would not allow anyone, "now or in the future", to incorporate the university into the "so-called self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo.

"The university is one of the pillars of our [Serbian] nation in Kosovo and we will not allow anyone to reduce it or influence the work of the university in any way," Djuric said.

"The fate of Pristina University will always, with the support of Serbia, be decided exclusively by the academic community, its professors, students and by all those who make up this university," he added.

The confusion appears to have stemmed from a proposal by the Serbian Ministry of Education to merge and unite faculties within the university, centralizing its management.

As of now, its faculties are located in more than one town. The university became dispersed after 1999, when Kosovo Albanians took over the university in Pristina, which had been heavily Serbianised during the years of Slobodan Milosevic's rule.

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