UN Secretary-General has “new ideas” on Kosovo
Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel has said, after his New York talks with UN Secretary General, that Ban Ki-moon has “a couple of new ideas” regarding Kosovo.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Monday, April 14, 2008
"It was obvious from the talks that he had a few new ideas, which we in the EU will have to pay attention to and discuss", said Minister Rupel, who is also holding the presidency of the EU Council of ministers.
According to Rupel, over the next couple of days and weeks, several more rounds of talks will be held regarding the efforts that should be made as far as Kosovo is in question.
Rupel said he agreed with Ban that "cooperation from all participants in the issue was needed".
"We both stressed that joint action is needed... in order to resolve the problems that are not only European," Rupel was quoted as saying.
"We wish to have as little tension and drama as possible, we want a harmonized solving of the crisis, which started as a Yugoslav crisis in 1991," said the foreign minister, and "emphasized the UN's role" in the solving of the Kosovo question.
"We did not speak about what will happen after UNMIK, but how to best use UNMIK for cooperation and harmonious solving of problems, how to avoid confrontation and the danger of Kosovo's partition," Rupel said.
"Serbs don't live only in Mitrovica, but also elsewhere, and we by all means want to avoid a new ethnic cleansing," he said, but did not elaborate.
Meanwhile, Unmik spokesman Sven Lindholm said the mission will continue to be represent, but it will reconfigure its presence.
"The reconfiguring of the UN Mission in Kosovo is an answer to the change of the situation on the ground," he said.
"We are aware of the political reality that has presented itself in Kosovo, in that sense that new institutions have been set up and that part of the authority has been transferred onto them," Lindholm continued.
Asked if UNMIK would leave Kosovo and transfer its jurisdictions onto someone else come June 15, Lindholm answered that there was "no such thing as a fixed date for the UN Mission to leave Kosovo".
He underlined that "UNMIK will remain in the province as long as UN Security Council Resolution 1244 was in force".
