Patriarch and president meet and urge “unity”

TANJUG – 13/5/13 BELGRADE — Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Irinej and President Tomislav Nikolić met on Monday and urged “absolute unity and responsibility”. This is necessary “in the search for a solution to the Kosovo and Metohija issue as the most important national matter.” “We wish to resolve the Kosovo and Metohija issue in a way that does not jeopardise the Constitution or Serbia’s sovereignty, nor calls into question the lives and security of Kosovo-Metohija citizens, especially the local Serb population,” the president said in a joint address to reporters after the meeting with the SPC patriarch in the Belgrade Patriarchate. The patriarch also voiced the need for unity and warned that splits are the most difficult problem in the search for a solution to the Kosovo and Metohija issue, as well as stands voiced without grounds or reasons and excuses which can prove detrimental and cannot be of any use to Serbia.