UNMIK/PR/297
The Kosovo Transitional Council devoted today's meeting to a special session on communities in Kosovo, and most of today's discussion centered on inter-ethnic relations.
SRSG Bernard Kouchner told the KTC that with only one year since the end of the war, getting the various communities of Kosovo to work together had been somewhat successful, in that the leadership was cooperating in such bodies as the KTC. However the populations themselves remained reluctant to engage with one another.
The Bosniak member Numan Balic, who had inspired this session, asked for a direct discussion between the Bosniak community and SRSG Kouchner. Mr. Balic and the representatives of the Turks and Roma said they felt their input was not valued at the KTC to the same extent as Serb issues. Dr. Kouchner responded that discussions with start soon with the Bosniaks, Turks and Romas on their concerns.
The Roma, Turk and Bosniak representatives also raised concerns over the lack of participation by their respective communities in structures such as the Kosovo Police Service and the local administration. Dr. Kouchner said that he strongly encouraged members of these communities to apply for professional posts in the interim administration and has offered them various posts. He noted that UNMIK continues to work hard to ensure proper representation of all communities in the interim institutions and municipal councils, as well as the KTC.
The UNMIK administration and pillars have worked hard to ensure all communities have access to public services across Kosovo and to assist them in a wide range of issues from humanitarian assistance to the development of political and civil society structures, as well as of course trying to improve the security situation and the return of all refugees and displaced persons, Dr. Kouchner said.
He said UNMIK would remain committed to guaranteeing equal rights to all members of all communities and would undertake actions targeting specific communities when justified.
He also endorsed initiatives in that regard by members of the Interim Administrative Council and said UNMIK supported their recent moves to get closer to the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities.
A Turkish representative raised the demand that the Turkish language be made an official language, equal to Albanian and Serbo-Croat, as he said the Turks had enjoyed under the 1974 Constitution. DSRSG Tom Koenigs said that all the requests of the Turkish community regarding language had been fulfilled, except making Turkish one of the official languages of Kosovo, a demand that was not technically feasible. Mr. Koenigs pointed out that the Turkish community would actually enjoy more official use of the language under the draft regulation on Self-Governance of Municipalities in Kosovo than was the actual case in 1974. The UNMIK regulation will require that in all municipalities where Turks or any other community are a substantial part of the population but not the majority--, meetings, documents and official business will be conducted or translated into that language.
All three communities asked for their own television and radio broadcast services. Mr. Koenigs responded that RTK was the only public broadcast service in existence now, and that as the broadcast time is lengthened, there would be room to accommodate more kinds of programming. He added that such broadcasting for communities was otherwise a matter of money which would have to be raised from the donor community.
In closing, UNMIK officials said listened to all the concerns raised at today's meeting and would do their best to address them.