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BELGRADE - Yugoslavia is the only country in the Balkans which is not national, by its own determination, but regulated under its Constitution as a state of all citizens with human rights guaranteed according to top international standards, Serbian Minister Ivan Sedlak said.
Minister Sedlak, who is in charge of human rights and rights of national minorities, spoke at a panel hosted by Tanjug. He said minorities are considered a civilizational heritage in Yugoslavia, a better quality life in comparison with one-national states or communities.
Moreover, he said, there is a "positive discrimination of the non-majority population with respect to Serbs and Montenegrins."
Speaking about the period since the secessions of the former Yugoslav republics, Sedlak said the issue of human rights and rights of national minorities had become a proving ground for various manipulations in the attempts to dismantle Yugoslavia and Serbia, and had led even to the launching of the NATO aggression.
Certain neighbouring countries have the task to continue pressuring Yugoslavia, he said. They are doing this through their national communities and political parties, demanding various autonomies, even autonomies within autonomies, he said.
Sedlak illustrated these claims with the coordinated approach of ethnic Hungarian political parties and the Hungarian state regarding an autonomy, practically of the third degree, which they demand in Serbia's northern Vojvodina province.
Regarding the Raska district, Minister Sedlak said inter-ethnic and inter-confessional relations there were good as "both sides" had learned a lesson from the so-called Bosnian war.
Sedlak underscored the correct role of the Islamic religious community, and also of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
"With good cooperation and a patriotic approach during the aggression launched against Yugoslavia by NATO, they are deserving that the situation in the Raska district was and remains stable," he said.
Commenting on the situation in Serbia's southern Kosovo and Metohija province, the minister said the elementary human right was jeopardized there - the right to life, and by those very people who came to take care of and protect the allegedly threatened human rights in that province.
Minister Sedlak also spoke about the position of the Serb national minority in neighbouring cuntries. He said it was far from what the Constitution and laws offer to national communities in Yugoslavia.