Prime Minister Mustafa does not want Gani Koci as minister (Koha)

Citing unnamed sources, the paper reports that changes in the Kosovo government have been stopped as a result of Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s decision not to accept Gani Koci, a member of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), as minister of justice.

The Quint wants credible ministers (Zeri)

The paper reports that representatives of the Quint embassies in Kosovo claim they do not interfere in the appointment of new ministers of the Kosovo government; however, they insist that the most qualified and credible representatives should be appointed as heads of government ministries, “because ministers are responsible for fighting corruption and for developing the country’s economy”.  J. Michelle Shohn, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Pristina, told the paper that this embassy has continuously stressed the need that credible and qualified people should be appointed in ministerial posts. Shohn also said that the U.S. Embassy does not interfere in the selection of ministers.

Opposition warns using gas and protests against demarcation with Montenegro (Epoka)

Aida Derguti, senior member of the Vetevendosje Movement and Vice President of the Kosovo Assembly, told the newspaper that the opposition will organize protests if the government insists on ratifying the border demarcation agreement with Montenegro. Derguti said that despite differences, the Vetevendosje Movement is ready to cooperate with the other opposition parties – the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) and Initiative for Kosovo (NISMA) – in opposing the demarcation agreement. Derguti also said the EU’s conditioning of visa liberalization with the ratification of the border agreement is unjust. “This was not a condition for any of the Balkans countries that have received visa liberalisation. This is a discriminatory approach by the EU vis-à-vis Kosovo,” she said. Bilall Sherifi, one of the leaders of the Initiative for Kosovo, said if the government insists on the demarcation agreement, his party would join forces with the Vetevendosje in opposing it.

Protest against barricades in Mitrovica today (media)

Most media report that the Civic Action Initiative will organize a protest in Mitrovica today calling for “the removal of barricades in Mitrovica North, the return of Albanians to their homes and properties and the end of ethnic cleansing and Serbia’s colonization there”. The protest will be held near the main barricade on the Iber Bridge. A press release issued by the Civic Action Initiative noted: “the Initiative is an organization aimed at raising civic awareness for engaging in the resolution of political, economic and social problems. We believe that an active citizenship is the key promoter of necessary political and social changes that must happen in our country … Being witness to Serbia’s political aggression in the northern part of Kosovo, the colonization of the whole northern part of Mitrovica, the silence of the international community and the inability of the Kosovo government to act, we believe that civic engagement and pressure will help force the EU and the Kosovo government to stop Serbia’s hegemonic plans to destroy the Republic of Kosovo”.

Delawie: Violence in Parliament is a security threat to Kosovo (Epoka/RTV21)

Epoka e Re runs the full interview that U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie, gave to RTV21.

We have to talk at the beginning about the current political situation, and having in mind everything that’s been going on. Would you say that we are entering into a more calm phase, or is it something called “calm before a storm”, having in mind what the opposition announced, especially Vetevendosje?

Ambassador Delawie: Well, my crystal ball has kind of broken today but let me tell you, I’ve certainly been happy there has not been violence in the Assembly or on the streets of Pristina, for these last several months. I don’t think political violence is the answer ever. I don’t think it was the answer last fall. I don’t think it’s the answer now and I certainly don’t think it’s the answer for the future. I certainly hope that the situation becomes more normal. I hope that the opposition members of Parliament will return to the Assembly to do the job that their citizens elected them to do. Similarly, I hope to see governing party members of Parliament appear in Parliament and committee sessions more frequently. It’s disappointing to me when I see that the Assembly can’t make quorum or commission can’t make quorum because members of Parliament did not show up to represent the people that elected them. It also disappoints me when members – when government officials don’t show up to make the presentations to the parliamentarians about — you know, what they think the laws are about and things like that. The – all of these officials – the parliamentarians, the government officials, things like that– they all work for the people of Kosovo. I think the people of Kosovo deserve better, I’d like to see the Assembly completely in regular order, I’d like to see the Assembly to make quorum all the time and I certainly would like to see the governing processes of Kosovo continue to do their best to serve the people of Kosovo who elected them.

However, can we expect a further escalation of situation, fueled either by the opposition, drafting the Statute of Association of Municipalities with Serb Majority, ratification of border demarcation with Montenegro, or do you think these processes will go more smoothly?

Well, once again I am not going to try and predict the future there.  You know, you and many of your colleagues here in Kosovo have much more experience and can try to do that. But, certainly there is important work for the Assembly to do, and I hope that things go normally. I think the way to resolve political problems is to debate them or to vote on them in the Assembly. I don’t think the way to resolve political problems is to go out on the streets or to provoke violence.

Another issue that might come up, and a lot of people feel like it might have the potential to escalate the situation, is once the first indictments from SITF become public – it’s even qualified as a time bomb within political circles…

We’ll see what happens when it’s formed. Right now, the Parliament of Netherlands has to approve the treaties with Kosovo. I don’t know how long that’s going to take and once again, I don’t want to predict exactly what is going to happen in the future.

What we know based on what happened in the past is that a lot of time has been wasted on this political crisis and processes have stagnated.  Do you think that there is anyone in particular should be held accountable or even responsible for this whole situation and the potential for further problems?

It’s not my job as a foreigner to evaluate the leaders of Kosovo or its political parties. I think that’s the job for the voters of Kosovo whenever the elections come up, to make their decisions whether they are feeling that they are effectively served by the people they’ve elected, or not. Or they want to make a different choice – it’s not really something that I want to get into.

We are in a critical situation where the security issue has been discussed a lot recently. Can we say that the current political situation actually poses a security threat and how does this situation relate to other security threats in Kosovo, including terrorism and radical Islam?

OK.  Maybe you can separate that into couple of parts and deal with ‘is violence in the parliament a security threat to Kosovo’ and then take the radical Islam part in a minute.  You may have to remind me.

I’m sure I will.

Thank you.  But, yes, I think that violence in Parliament is a security threat to Kosovo. The problem is if political violence starts to work for one group of people and they feel that they are achieving some kind of objectives out of it, then another group of people is going to learn a lesson from that and then maybe they start using political violence, as well. And, not very long, you’re in this action and response phase from multiple groups and you are on the slippery slope to chaos and anarchy. But even more broadly than that, I think violence in Parliament has a negative effect on Kosovo due to its impact abroad. And, you know we saw this during the UNESCO vote last fall. Where – no secret: my Government was supporting Kosovo’s membership in UNESCO and our embassies around the world were calling their foreign governments asking them to support Kosovo in the vote in Paris. Of course, 90 or so countries did, which is good but you know we missed by three votes, unfortunately. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues around the world – too many– heard stories from their foreign government counterparts something along the lines of: “why should we vote for a country to join an organization that is intended to protect cultural heritage, when that country can’t even protect its own parliament?” So, I think it’s important for people to recognize that actions that they may take here in Kosovo for some kind of domestic reason can easily ricochet around the world and have negative consequences on their own country. I can say the same thing about foreign investment.  I have been spending a lot of time on the telephone with American companies, trying to explain that Kosovo is really a safe place and that they can come here, they can invest their money here. The problem is – you know – what they see on television, the impression they have of Kosovo is unfortunately the tear gas in the parliament and the Molotov cocktails in the street. Those are the things that kind of bounced around the world, everybody knows about them. And, you know, it’s going to take us a while to overcome those things, so that people see Kosovo the way it really is. It’s a safe place for people to come, it’s a safe place for people to invest and it’s a country that is ready to take its part on the world stage.

Have you noticed any, let’s say, particularly reinforced effort of the government institutions to go beyond the…

Well, you’re a news person.  You know this stuff better than I do.  Is good news, news?  Yeah, you don’t want to answer that one.  Unfortunately, dramatic pictures are news, and it’s very hard to counteract that kind of thing. I reflect on my time I was in Croatia, ten years ago, I was Deputy Chief of Mission at our Embassy there. We knew a year or so ahead of time that we would go to Croatia and we’d tell our friends and our colleagues what we’re going to do and they’d say, “oh gosh, what about – what you going to do with the children?”  I would say, children are coming with us. There is a school, they are going to go to school and they’ll be fine. And people would say– including people in the Department of State, by the way – but, what about the war? Well, the war ended ten years ago. But, the war was the last time Croatia was in the news in the United States. And that’s what people remembered. People remember the stuff that you put on TV that’s dramatic, that’s interesting. And unfortunately from the Kosovo standpoint, the tear gas was dramatic and interesting and I am afraid it will stick in people’s minds. And I am not giving up, we are going to keep working on this issue and I know that many people here are going to do that, as well.

OK, let us get back to radical Islam as one of the security threats. Recently, we had an article in the New York Times which actually called Kosovo fertile ground for terrorist recruiters. Do you think the government of Kosovo is actually doing enough to combat the terrorism and radical Islam?

I read that article. Actually, everybody, all of my family, all of my friends read that article, too. And my email inbox now is completely full of copies of the New York Times article. I have to say – I think that article missed an important part of the story which is the very important and very successful actions that the last two Governments of Kosovo have taken, especially since August of 2014. You know, we’ve got things like going to the Countering Violent Extremism Summit in the United States.  There was a regional one in Albania.  There is a foreign terrorist fighter law that was passed in 2015. There were, I guess, more than 50 people have been arrested for participating in other people’s wars– people that have returned to Kosovo from Syria or Iraq. There were several people that were convicted just last Friday, including someone who was convicted of radicalizing young Kosovo citizens and encouraging them to go off to the war.  That person received a sentence of 10 years which is, as far as we can tell, the longest sentence for such types of crimes that has been imposed in the entire region. So, I think it’s clear that Kosovo is doing a lot, and you know we are working with Kosovo, we have been working with Kosovo all along the way on this issue. Am I going to say that – you know, we all know exactly what to do to deal with that problem? No, of course not.  We don’t know exactly – we’re struggling with that in Kosovo.  Other European countries are struggling.  We have a violent extremism problem in the United States that we are trying to grapple with. We’re all taking various approaches. Some of them are going to work better than others, that’s just the way you deal with a new problem. You kind of keep trying things and some of them will work and some of the will work less well. But, I think we’ve got a great partner in Kosovo and I do think Kosovo is doing a lot.

You said “we have a great partner in Kosovo.”  The article seems to suggest that Kosovo is no longer that much pro-American. Did you get that opinion as well, or did you get that impression while reading the article?  Do you think that is true?

I am afraid the article does leave that impression. I have to say, I disagree with it entirely. I have been here 10 months or so, and I see personally the depth of pro-Americanism, pro-Westernism, pro-Europeanism of Kosovo citizens. I – there are places in Kosovo, downtown Pristina, I see more American flags than I do in some places in United States. Strangers they stop me on the street and ask – and they thank me and they want me to take pictures with their children. I think it’s unfair to tar an entire country, really, 2 million people, with the views of a really, really tiny percentage of people. I guess it’s a long answer to your short question. No, I do not see any growing anti-Americanism here.  It’s a free country; different people have different views, that’s fine.  But I have been very impressed that people seem to – the vast majority of people still, really seem to respect the country I represent and I am very happy about that.

This article actually somehow brought back the attention to radical Islam and terrorism within public opinion in Kosovo and sort of shifted it from the political crises. But, having in mind the current political situation, the corruption, the situation in the north: would you say this [terrorism] is the top security threat or there are other issues that Kosovo needs to deal with?

In the security framework, I would say that countering violent extremism is an extremely important issue for Kosovo, just as it is for my country. We’ve seen attacks– very serious attacks in other European countries.  I don’t know of anything like that planned here, I hope it never comes here, but it is something we all have to pay very careful attention to. We have to work closely with police, security institutions, judicial institutions, and we can’t just ignore it and hope it goes away. And now, I do not see anybody, any governing official here, whether the policemen on the beat or a minister here that has any intention of sweeping this under the rug and hoping it goes away.

Also, as I said: one of the top threats for society, and one of the problems that has been identified as one of the priorities of your mandate, is corruption. What is actually being done to fight corruption?  Besides what everyone already knows, you claim that U.S. is actually investing millions in this, but what are the results?

As you said, corruption is one of my top priorities. I mean, rule of law technically is my top priority– corruption is an important part of that. It is a big problem here. I think you all know that certainly better than I do.  I think it is the albatross around Kosovo’s neck, and it’s important that Kosovo deals successfully with this problem in coming years if it’s to achieve its ambitions of being fully integrated into Europe and a member of all the key European clubs. And, what is being done? Yes, we are investing something like $12 million this year in something called “The Justice Sector Strengthening Project”, which is working with the judicial branch to improve the efficiency, to improve logistics, to improve transparency– transparency is a key thing you have that makes corruption harder to have– and so we are working with the judicial sector, we are working with the prosecutors, we are working with the police on identifying corruption, prosecuting corruption and adjudicating corruption cases. If I had a magic wand that would eliminate it, believe me I would. It’s a problem that many countries around the world struggle with. My country, of course, too, has corruption. I don’t like that.  It’s a societal problem.  It’s an education problem.  It’s a health care problem.  It’s a law enforcement problem.  And, of course, it’s a political problem.  But, it’s something we are working on.  We continue to make it our top priority because it’s so important for Kosovo’s future, for Kosovo’s economy and to help Kosovo’s citizens feel more comfortable that their government is working for them.

The government has been received assistance from USAID and various programs for many, many years now to tackle this issue. Can it be argued that Kosovo’s institutions are reliable and trustworthy partners of yours to tackle corruption or do you think that there is need to change the overall approach?

We have many reliable partners here in various rule of law sectors. We work with them. We work to improve their capabilities, their skills.  This USAID program that I mentioned before is an important element. I think the vast majority of people in the rule of law system– police, prosecutors, judges– are doing their best to implement the law and the Constitution. Unfortunately, there are some people that are not doing their best or that are violating the law. Those cases become notorious and they decrease the confidence of Kosovo citizens in kind of the whole system. We are working with partners who we believe are reliable. We are doing our best. We are training people. We are providing tools and we are going to continue working on it. I think another important partner here is EULEX, which couple of weeks ago arrested fifty or so people who are allegedly stealing from Kosovo citizens. We have, we strongly support EULEX, we have 16 Americans who are working in EULEX– it’s the European Rule of Law Misssion, but we contribute to it because we feel that its task is really important– and we think that it is very important for EULEX to remain, to see these cases through to their conclusion, and to convict people who are guilty and to continue working on this project which is extremely hard.

Having marked the third anniversary of the Brussels Agreement some days ago and having marked other milestones in a long process of dialogue, have we reached a point in which we analyze the overall success of the process?

We think– I think it’s very important for Kosovo to find its place in center of Europe. To become a member of all the key European clubs it wants to become part of. I don’t see a way it’s going to get there without good relations with all of its neighbors and that includes Serbia. I think the dialogue over the last several years has made some progress. I have talked in the past about things like municipal elections over the entire territory of Kosovo and national elections over the entire territory of Kosovo.  There are customs collections on the northern border of Kosovo right now, which wouldn’t have happened before. This summer, this new auto insurance agreement that was made last year is supposed to go into effect that will make travel easier for people of both sides, so I do resist the idea that there has been no benefit from the dialogue. I think despite the difficult history, despite the different views of Kosovo and Serbia on many important things, there is evidence– clear evidence that the countries can work together to help make a practical difference in real peoples’ life. So that’s good. Now I admit the dialogue is not moving as fast as I would like it to. It– there is certain amount of dialogue fatigue clearly that’s going on but you know we will certainly encourage both countries to find the way to continue to make progress, to continue to work towards more normalized relations and to try to do things that actually make a practical difference in people’s lives so that they can see why they are doing the dialogue. I admit that some of these things like customs collections on the northern border are kind of abstract—I mean, they do not affect you, they don’t affect me, they kind of affect the entire Kosovo economy, but not you and me personally. But other things like this auto insurance thing they do actually affect people and they make their lives better.

The agreement that really both parties have been struggling to implement that was reached last year, there are problems on that regard and the implementation of many agreements has been either stopped or stagnated.  You said you encourage both parties to continue the dialogue, does this mean that you would encourage them to continue the dialogue in this manner, in this format as it is conducted, or have you actually reached the point where you think of reformatting it or just making changes or possibly revising the process as a whole?

Well, dialogue belongs to Kosovo and Serbia the EU facilitates it, and we provide very strong moral support and some ideas sometimes. So the dialogue doesn’t belong to me, it doesn’t belong to United States.  I can’t change it with the stroke of the pen. It belongs to Kosovo and to Serbia, and we strongly support it.  We try to help out.  We help the EU, we help the two countries– whatever happens in the future will be because the two countries have agreed to it and that gets back to projecting the future which I am not going to do.

I think that is all we have time for today.  Thank you…

Ok, thank you.  Could I make one—there is one additional point that I would like to make.  And I am reminded of it because of the dialogue, although there is a very tenuous connection, I am not sure I could draw it. But, as Kosovo becomes more integrated with, kind of the rest of the Balkans, you know positive things are happening like the UEFA decision a couple weeks ago, the FIFA decision a week after that. I tell you I am really looking forward to seeing Kosovo soccer, or I guess I should say here football, teams play against other European teams and the world teams on the world stage.  That is going to be very exciting to me and I am sure it will be very exciting to the citizens of Kosovo. Related to that, you know we’ve got the Olympics coming up in Rio de Janeiro.  For the first time, Kosovo will have athletes representing it in Rio.  I think that’s a great thing, too.  I keep saying– I have already said it three times, I am sorry, you can edit me out– but we want Kosovo to be a state like any other.  We want it to be in the heart of Europe. It does not always go as fast as people want. It sure doesn’t goes fast as the young people of Kosovo want and that doesn’t bother me at all, they should be impatient. When young people are impatient, old people like me are more encouraged to do important things. But there is progress.  There is the soccer progress. There is Olympics progress, and I am convinced there will continue to be progress for Kosovo fulfilling its really justified place on the European stage.

You know you actually surprised me on the last one because I did not realize you know about football.

I have lived a third of my life in Europe.  I have learned a couple of things about football.

That justifies it.

I was thinking maybe the NBA Playoffs would be the topic of conversation…

I like basketball too.

It was nice speaking with you, Mr. Ambassador.  Thank you.

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.