A population census began in Kosovo-Metohija early Friday, but most of the Serbs in the region are boycotting it.

Chairman of the Kosovo Central Census Commission Rifat Bljaku said that local politicians and the UN Office of Project Services (UNOPS) had been engaged to help overcome the problem of boycotting of the population and households census by the Serbian communities.

Serbia insists that the census in Kosovo-Metohija be taken by UNOPS.

The European Commission Liaison Office in Pristina said the population and housing census in Kosovo would be conducted from April 1 to 15 and that it would be monitored by the Statistical Office of the European Commission (EUROSTAT).

Bljaku said that the census was going on well for now, indicating that the collected information would be processed according to standards designated by EUROSTAT.

In Gracanica, the biggest Serb community in central Kosovo, most of the Serbs are boycotting the census organized by the Pristina authorities, stating that they did not have confidence in Pristina's institutions and that they feared the collected information could be abused.

Rada trajkovic, a United Serb List MP in the Kosovo parliament, argued that Serbs should not respond to the census if it was not carried out by the United Nations in the entire Kosovo.

“Census is a state matter of highest priority. I believe that if the census is carried out by the Kosovo institutions, it will only represent the legalization of ethnic cleansing of Serbs from this region, which we find unacceptable,” Trajkovic told Tanjug.

She said it was also unacceptable for the UN to be in charge of the process only in the Kosovo north, stressing that this meant the international community was in this way itself dividing Kosovo.

“We want unified conditions for the census and this is one of the main conditions,” Trajkovic said.

Coordinator of the census in the Gracanica municipality Nebojsa Peric told Tanjug that the reactions to the census were “still unclear” as there were both people who were refusing to respond and those who were willing to do that without hesiatation.