Public administration reform in Kosovo should be finalized by the end of May, said today Prime Minister Isa Mustafa. He said the reforms process, that began several years ago, will definitely have to end before June. He said the Kosovo institutions need to implement obligations and tasks related to the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.
Trade Union of the Teachers is not the only one threatening with strike, due to the lack of implementation of 0.5 percent increase. Kosovo’s United Trade Union of civil servants gave an ultimatum of ten days to the government, to fulfill the promised increase of 0.5 percent from the beginning of this year.
The trade union of Administration, Jurisdiction, Healthcare, Police and the Federation of the Civil Servants of Kosovo announced that they will undertake joint pressure actions after this deadline.
Citing unidentified sources, Kosovapress reports that Igor Shulyatchenko, deputy chief of the Russian Office in Pristina, was involved in a recent car accident in northern Kosovo. The incident happened on April 18 around 21:30 hours on the Mitrovica-Leposavic road. The same sources claimed that Shulyatchenko was driving drunk on a vehicle with diplomatic plates when he hit a biker. “The victim is a 30 year-old and he was treated in the Mitrovica North hospital. The police have meanwhile tried to minimize the whole case,” sources said.
Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, said today in Pristina that it is not the position of the FYROM government that a group of Kosovars are responsible for the recent incident in Gushnica, but that it is rather the position of an individual official. Ahmeti made these remarks after meeting Hashim Thaci, the Principal Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo. Thaci told reporters that Kosovo appreciates Ahmeti’s role in the affirmation of Albanians in FYROM.
Serbian List MPs rejoined today the Kosovo Assembly session, on the day when the legislators were scheduled to discuss the issue of missing persons.
International reactions towards the decision of Belgrade to forbid the visit of Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, continue.
Ambassador Frank Wisner, who was also chief negotiator of the U.S. State Department during the Vienna negotiations, gave an extensive statement for Kosova Press, where he condemned Belgrade’s behavior as “an unfortunate example for a lost opportunity to advance the relations between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia.”
The former Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Erhard Busek, in an interview for Kosova Press said that given the need to establish normal relations between Kosovo and Serbia, diplomatic games are not very useful. According to him, Serbia's arrest warrant on Kosovo's Deputy Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, is a political game. "These are all political games with no future. Serbia should think also about the arrest warrants which have affected the Serbs themselves in the past,” Busek said.
Dozens of activists of the three opposition parties, the Vetevendosje Movement, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and Initiative for Kosovo, on Friday developed an action in front of the government building, placing a picture of Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Hashim Thaci holding a hammer with a picture of Justice Minister Hajredin Kuci. The activists said that as long as Kuci remains Justice Minister, there will be no law and order in Kosovo.
Starting today, the four bridges over the Iber River that divides the city of Mitrovica, will be monitored 24/7 by the Kosovo Police station in the north, members of the so-called Civil Protection and members of the Serbian Ministry of Interior Affairs. Unnamed sources told the news site that these structures will monitor all individuals and vehicles that cross the bridges. The same sources said the operational plan was agreed on Thursday after a two-hour meeting at the Serbian Government’s Office for Kosovo in Mitrovica North. The plan will reportedly be implemented indefinitely.
Kosovo’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Skender Hyseni, accompanied by the Director of the Kosovo Police, Shpend Maxhuni met on Thursday with President of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), Mykola Gnatovskyy. At the meeting special attention was paid to the treatment of persons in police custody, prison conditions and prison health care. Hyseni thanked Gnatovskyy for the visit and stressed that the conditions which were provided to persons in these institutions comply with international standards on the protection of human rights.