UNMIK/PR/1575
PRISTINA – UNMIK Director of Civil Administration Patricia Waring and Kosovo Minister of Transport and Communications Qemajl Ahmeti today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) governing the transfer of UNMIK’s competency to provide humanitarian transportation for the minorities in Kosovo to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Acting Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Kosovo (ASRSG) Steven Schook and Prime Minister Agim Çeku witnessed the signing ceremony.
“I sign this MoU with the confidence that the government of Kosovo will fulfil all its political, administrative and financial commitments to ensure the freedom of movement to all of Kosovo’s communities,” Ms. Waring said at the signing ceremony, and added: “This transfer will in no way change or disrupt existing services and there will be no change in the current service providers until 2008.”
Since 2001 UNMIK has been operating the “Freedom of Movement Train” from Leposavic to Skopje and a humanitarian bus service for minority communities throughout Kosovo.
For the past four months, representatives from the Ministries of Transport and Communications as well as Communities and Returns, the OSCE, the Ombudsperson of Kosovo and UNMIK have met in a working group to develop the modalities for this competency transfer. Particular care was given to ensure the freedom of movement for all of Kosovo’s communities including their direct participation in any decision to change humanitarian transportation services.
Ms. Waring stressed that in signing this MoU, the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government in Kosovo (PISG) are fulfilling one of the priorities for Standards implementation set forth by the Contact Group: ‘to identify and provide minority needs for public transport’. She praised the Government of Kosovo for exercising goodwill and maturity in accepting this responsibility and particularly noted the outstanding contribution of the PISG Ministry in the working group.