UNMIK/PR/683
The top envoy of the European Union, Javier Solana, today told Kosovo’s elected leaders that they must move soon to choose a president and construct the institutions of provisional self-government.
Mr. Solana, the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, met separately with Kosovo Albanian party leaders Ibrahim Rugova, Hashim Thaci, and Ramush Haradinaj as well as with Kosovo Assembly President Rexhat Daci and Kosovo Serb leader Rada Trajkovic. He also met acting SRSG Charles Brayshaw, OSCE chief Pascal Frieschi, KFOR Commander Gen. Marcel Valentin and representatives of diplomatic offices.
Mr. Solana arrived in Pristina after meeting the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia leadership on Thursday. He was due to go on from Pristina to Belgrade for talks on Serbia-Montenegro relations.
He told the media at UNMIK headquarters in Pristina that, “I transmitted to the leaders, without drama, but with intensity, that time is close to running out. I appealed to them to be as constructive as possible, to allow the election of the president and construction of the provisional institutions, to face up to their responsibilities and find a solution.”
Solana reminded media that his last visit to Pristina had been in November, a week after the general elections that created the 120-member Kosovo Assembly. At that time he had praised the spirit and momentum of the people in conducting successful elections.
Now he said, it was important to maintain that momentum and to work to fulfill the expectations of the electorate.
“I also told them to mobilize the best brains in Kosovo, to have the best qualified people in government from the political parties, so that government is not a place to discuss great political constructions, but the place where you solve the real problems facing people here.”
Asked about recent political violence in Kosovo (a Kosovo Assembly member was murdered last week), Mr. Solana said that he believed Kosovo was not experiencing a “climate of violence” recently, but rather “sporadic events.”
Asked about possible UNMIK intervention in the current political situation, he said that “the responsibility for a solution lies on those who were elected by the Kosovo people. They have to feel ownership.”
