- VV-LDK meeting ends without any agreement, next one with Quint presence (Klan Kosova, TV21, KTV)
- Veseli: If cowards run away from responsibility, country soon goes to the polls (RTK)
- Grenell: Kosovo-Serbia meeting on railways went well, more issues were discussed (KTV)
- Holocaust Day remembered (Klan Kosova)
- Thaci: Serbia denying “Balkan Holocaust”, Djuric: Don’t abuse Jewish victims (N1)
- NATO Deputy SG: We intervened in Kosovo to prevent a new genocide (KTV)
- Indictment filed against a woman who joined ISIS (Klan Kosova)
News
VV-LDK meeting ends without any agreement, next one with Quint presence
(Klan Kosova, TV21, KTV)
LDK officials, anonymously told KTV that no agreement has been reached in Monday’s meeting with LVV.
The meeting between the Vetëvendosje leader Albin Kurti and the LDK leader Isa Mustafa ended.
Both political parties avoided the media present, and gave no statements.
Reportedly, Isa Mustafa along with other LDK members left the Assembly premises, whilst Kurti left the premises a few minutes later.
LDK officials, anonymously told KTV that no agreement has been reached in Monday’s meeting with LVV.
Later on, Klan Kosova, referring to a Facebook post by LDK, reported that nothing new was presented at the meeting.
“In today’s meeting we presented our stances that are already known to the public. We believe that those stances are balanced for both sides, and that they serve governing stability in the country,” the statement says.
Klan Kosova learned that even after Monday’s discussions, Albin Kurti and Isa Mustafa agreed to have another meeting.
Reportedly, the next meeting between VV and LDK may happen on Tuesday or Wednesday.
TV21 reported that Vetëvendosje Movement, on a Facebook post, stated that the agreement had not been reached in Monday’s meeting. They announced another meeting to take place on Tuesday, which will be attended by Quint ambassadors in Prishtinë/Pristina, and by Head of the EU Mission.
Veseli: If cowards run away from responsibility, country soon goes to the polls
(RTK)
PDK chairman Kadri Veseli stated on Monday evening that if cowards, as he called Vetëvendosje officials, fail to take responsibility, the country will soon go to new elections.
Veseli said that citizens do not deserve to be maltreated for months for narrow personal interests.
“With these low actions, those cowards are damaging Kosovo and strengthening Serbia. And we will not allow them to destroy the country for their own interests,” Veseli said.
He added that in this fragile situation for the country, he has asked the Minister of Finance to double in the new budget for the armament of Kosovo Army as well as the one for the Kosovo Police, in order to further increase security of the country.
Grenell: Kosovo-Serbia meeting on railways went well, more issues were discussed
(KTV)
The envoy of the US President for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Ambassador Richard Grenell, said that the discussions on re-establishing railway line between Prishtinë/Pristina and Belgrade went well, and he thanked experts of both sides for taking part in the meeting.
Representatives of Kosovo and Serbia met on Monday in Berlin, under Grenell’s mediation.
“We have made a good progress this morning, by issuing a Letter of Intention about railway cooperation. The discussions went so well that we also discussed other issues. We will work by email to complete the Letter of Intention on railways, during the next week or later. I want to thank again the experts from Serbia and Kosovo, for travelling today to Berlin for these discussions,” Grenell stated to Radio Free Europe.
Grenell, who is the US Ambassador to Germany, did not give further details about the other topics that were discussed.
Holocaust Day remembered
(Klan Kosova)
Photos exhibited in the hall of Europa Centre in Prizren, showed Jews and Albanians during the World War II. There are many Albanian families that provided them shelter, as they were persecuted by the Nazis.
The Albanian families that saved Jews from the genocide during this war were mentioned one by one by the OSCE Ambassador to Kosovo Jan Braathu, on 75th anniversary of Holocaust.
“Family of Sejdi Selmani in Mitrovica, the family of Sabit Haxhikurteshi in Prishtina, the families of Ruzhdi Behluli and Riza Çitaku in Gjilan, the families of Hasan Shala and Arsim Luzha in Gjakova, and the Belegu family in Peja,” Ambassador Braathu said.
He said this shows that Albanian sheltered people whom they did not know, they proved to be humane, and the message of this event is that it should never be repeated anymore.
Ines Demiri, founder of Jewish community in Kosovo, said that the Holocaust, which occurred during World War II, produced many lessons.
“One of the key lessons that should be learned from the Holocaust is the need to protect human dignity and human rights of all people wherever they are, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or gender,” Demiri said.
The Prime Minister designate Albin Kurti attended the event, too. He said that Kosovo people also experienced such a madness, adding that differently from Germany, which admitted its committed crimes, this has not been done by Serbia. Serbia still has not admitted the crimes committed in Kosovo.
It was Bashkim Smakaj, advisor to President of Kosovo, who spoke about the crimes committed by Serbia in Kosovo.
“In 1998-1999, Serbian military forces and the state of Serbia committed over 400 massacres in Kosovo. It inhumanely killed around 13.000 Albanian civilians, where about 1.300 of them were still children. It raped over 20.000 Albanian women,” Smakaj underlined.
On this occasion, it was also announced that Jewish Centre will be established in the Prizren Historic Centre.
Thaci: Serbia denying “Balkan Holocaust”, Djuric: Don’t abuse Jewish victims
(N1)
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci said on Monday that the Serbian authorities are continuing to deny the crimes that caused what he said was “a Balkan Holocaust in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo”.
“Kosovo today joins the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, a genocidal and monstrous crime… But the idea and efforts to kill people and ethnicities were continued by the Serbian regime in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The massacre and ethnic cleansing seemed like those in World War II. And, unfortunately, Serbia still continues to deny the crimes that caused the Balkan Holocaust in this part of Europe,” Thaci wrote on his Facebook account on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Thaci’s Facebook post drew a fierce reaction from Serbian government official Marko Djuric who said that the Kosovo President should not misuse the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jewish people in such a cheap and inappropriate way.
“Thaci has demonstrated a lack of civilization and taste by introducing the term Balkan Holocaust, comparing Serbs to Nazis and Albanians to Jews and admitting that he and his political allies do not care for the victims and their families,” the head of the government Office for Kosovo said, adding that the suffering of the Jews can’t be compared to anything, not even the suffering in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
“Instead of desecrating the memories of Jewish victims in WW2 you should face your own war-time criminal past and explain how evidence is being systematically destroyed and witnesses of Kosovo Liberation Army crimes killed in the territory where he is president,” Djuric said.
NATO Deputy SG: We intervened in Kosovo to prevent a new genocide
(KTV)
On the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană said that 50 years after Auschwitz, NATO intervened in Kosovo to prevent a new genocide on European soil.
In his speech, Geoană said that Holocaust was an assault on all humanity.
“It was about the destruction of the different. And what makes us different, what makes us unique, is what makes us human. After the War, the free nations of the world sought a new path. A path built on the upholding of universal values enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. Values such as the right to life, to freedom of religion, to freedom itself. NATO was created to uphold those values and to protect the peoples of Europe and North America from the tyranny that led to the Holocaust. 50 years after Auschwitz, NATO intervened in Kosovo to prevent a new genocide on European soil,” Geoană said, NATO’s official website reports.
Remembering the Holocaust, he said that on 27 January 1945, seventy-five years ago today, the Soviet army liberated the 7,000 souls left alive in Auschwitz. In the five years before that, at least 1.1 million people had been murdered behind its barbed wire fences.
“The Nazis killed more than 6 million Jews, but also Roma, homosexuals, handicapped people and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Killed not for what they had done, but for who they were,” NATO Deputy Secretary General said.
Indictment filed against a woman who joined ISIS
(Klan Kosova)
Special Prosecution Office of Kosovo has filed an indictment at the Basic Court in Prishtinë/Prishtina – Special Department, against A.A. for the offense of “Organizing and participating in a terrorist group.”
The Special Prosecution Office states that the accused A.A. on 23.11.2015, fully conscious, along with her husband, H.S and her daughter, D.S. left their permanent residence in the Republic of Kosovo, and flew to Istanbul, Turkey, through Prishtina International Airport “Adem Jashari”. They then entered the Islamic State in Syria in order to join the terrorist organization “ISIS”, which regularly financed them with an amount of 50 euros per month.
