The paper carries the below article, initially published in The Wall Street Journal.
Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci hit back at criticism of his country’s record in containing Islamic extremism, saying his nation – Europe’s youngest – is fighting hard against radical “elements.”
Over the last five years, around 300 Kosovars, out of a majority-Muslim population of 1.8 million, have joined Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, according to the government.
A New York Times article last month, which drew a sharp response from the government, argued that extremist clerics and Saudi-funded groups have, over the past 15 years, turned the country into “fertile ground” for Islamic State.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Brussels on Wednesday, Mr. Thaci declined to comment on the Times’ piece, but bristled at what he said were “exaggerated” claims in the media.
“Kosovo is not a cradle of extremism,” he said. The radical threat is “sporadic, individual and isolated.”
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“Again, we don’t deny that there are (extremist) elements or that…there are aspirations or ambitions of particular groups to promote radicalism,” Mr. Thaci said.
However he noted the words of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry who said in Pristina in December 2015 that Kosovo had “set a powerful example for the region” with arrests of extremists and antiterror legislation.
Mr. Thaci, long Kosovo’s most powerful politician, laid out the action his government was taking.
He said that new legislation making it a crime for citizens to participate in conflicts outside the country and an anti-ISIS information campaign meant no Kosovar had left to fight in Syria or Iraq since last autumn.
He said the government was working on reforms to prevent funds from outside Kosovo reaching the Islamic community for mosque-building and the education of imams and said his government plans to craft regulations that would force imams to be educated within the Kosovar system rather than not abroad. The government has shut down 30 supposedly humanitarian organizations already.
“We have very good cooperation and exchange with our partners in the global fight…against terrorism,” he said. “All Kosovo citizens who were and remain in Syria and Iraq are identified by the security agencies. And we will be very careful to make sure that they will actually face justice if they return.”
Kosovo’s deputy foreign minister, Petrit Selimi, said last month the authorities believe there are now fewer than 60 Kosovars fighting for Islamic State abroad.
Western concerns about radical Islam are a worry for a country that has relied on allies in Europe and the U.S. for protection and help since it declared independence in 2008. Twenty three of the EU’s 28 member states have recognized Kosovo. Relations with the U.S. remain warm 17 years after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombed one-time strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia to end what it said was ethnic cleansing targeting Kosovo’s Muslim population.
For Mr. Thaci, the pressure also comes during a U.S. presidential election where comments made by the presumptive Republican candidate, Donald Trump, could herald problems for Kosovo.
Mr. Trump has talked about abandoning NATO if U.S. allies don’t contribute more funding, has proposed temporarily banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country has backed Serbia in refusing to recognize Kosovo.
Mr. Thaci said Kosovo has maintained warm ties with Democrat and Republican administration’s in the past – noting that while President Bill Clinton sent NATO to aide Kosovars in the late 1990s, it was his successor, Republican President George W. Bush, who recognized the country’s independence in 2008.
He said Kosovo would be sending representatives to the Republican and Democratic conventions and that he would stay neutral in the domestic politics of his country’s most “special” ally.
Yet asked whether he had concerns about Mr. Trump’s pro-Putin remarks, he hinted at slightly less dispassionate feelings.
“As I said, I do believe that the people of the United States will make the right choice and that this concern that you are mentioning will not…be an issue for us,” he said.
