Albanian Language Media:

• A new report on Kosovo at the UN Security Council (RFE)
• Kurti expects May 2 meeting to treat missing persons issue with urgency (Telegrafi)
• Kosovo marks National Missing Persons Day (RFE)
• Germany: We expect unconditional implementation of Kosovo-Serbia agreement (RTK)
• Krasniqi: Management Team didn’t respond to invitation for meeting (RFE)
• Vela: Meja massacre, a crime that Serbia cannot deny! (media)

Serbian Language Media:

• Dacic meets with US ambassador to UN (Tanjug)
• 15-year prison verdict to Goran Stanisic upheld (Radio KIM)
• Dacic thanks Greece's Syriza party for supporting Serbia, Vucic thanks Azerbaijan (Politika, Tanjug, media)
• SNS to hold extraordinary assembly session on May 27 (Tanjug, media)
• Post of Serbia employees released after being apprehended by police in northern Kosovo (RTS)
• Another Serb from Kosovo arrested for undermining the constitutional order of Serbia (KoSSev, Kontakt plus radio, KiM radio)

International:

• Inadequate State of Social Services in Kosovo, Analysis Shows (Prishtina Insight)

   

Albanian Language Media  

A new report on Kosovo at the UN Security Council (RFE)

The United Nations Security Council will discuss today the latest biannual report of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres about the work of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). The session which will be held in New York and chaired by Russia, Kosovo and Serbia will be represented by foreign ministers Donika Gervalla and Ivica Dacic.

In the report covering the period from 16 September 2022 until 18 March 2023, Guterres welcomed the Agreement on normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia and the annex for its implementation, agreed upon by leaders of both parties.

Guterres notes in his report, which will be presented at the session by UNMIK chief Caroline Ziadeh, that the new framework of dialogue has the potential to push forward the process toward long-term solutions.

He said sustained constructive engagement towards comprehensive implementation of the Agreement will be indispensable for the building of common ground, preserving stability and preventing any relapse to tension and conflict. “The parties fully committed to honour all Articles of the Agreement, and implement all their respective obligations expediently and in good faith. This is all the more critical as developments during the reporting period brought tensions to crisis levels, resulting in the most concerning setback since the start of the dialogue process in 2011,” Guterres notes.

He added that “heightened and inflammatory rhetoric on all sides, the erection of roadblocks, multiple security incidents, and protests in northern Kosovo, have increased the risk of violence”. “Incidents of an interethnic nature, shootings and injuries, including among civilians and Kosovo police, as well as the apparent targeting of journalists and international security actors, were particularly alarming. All parties should exercise restraint and work to ensure that all disputes are addressed peacefully through dialogue rather than escalation and brinkmanship,” Guterres notes.

The report, which does not include local elections held in the four municipalities in the north of Kosovo last week, also notes that further progress in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina is “key to create conditions for the return of Kosovo Serb representatives to Kosovo institutions in the north”.

Kurti expects May 2 meeting to treat missing persons issue with urgency (Telegrafi)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said today on the National Missing Persons Day that he expects the high-level meeting in Brussels on May 2 to address the issue of missing persons with urgency. “The annex of the Ohrid agreement includes the urgency of the issue of missing persons … I expect that the meeting on May 2, will treat with urgency the issue of missing persons,” he said.

Kosovo marks National Missing Persons Day (RFE)

The National Missing Persons Day is marked in Kosovo on April 27. According to official data, 1,617 persons are considered forcibly disappeared from the 1998/99 war in Kosovo.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said today that the forceful disappearance of thousands of Kosovo citizens, including children, “was a clear attempt to exterminate a people”. “This was one of the most horrible crimes of the genocidal regime of Milosevic. On days like this, we need to understand not only how important it is to ask for the return of all those forcibly disappeared, but above all how important it is to set justice for them,” Osmani said.

Kosovo Assembly President Glauk Konjufca said that Kosovo needs to work with the international community so that Serbia “is held accountable” for what he called abduction and forceful disappearance of thousands of Albanians. “To this day, more than 1,600 of them are still missing, not because we don’t know where they are. We know exactly where; we also know who is responsible for those who were abducted and forcibly disappeared. It is the state of Serbia and the fact that many of them were found in institutions built by Serbia, as was the case of the military base, shows that Serbia knows exactly where they are,” Konjufca said.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti said that with the abduction and then forceful disappearance of the victims, Serbia tried to conceal the crimes. “We need justice, we need accountability, we need criminals, those who are guilty, the executors and those who gave the orders, to be put behind bars. We need national support but also national mobilisation for this,” he argued.

The EU Rule of Law Mission (EULEX), which worked on the issue of missing persons, and the Resource Centre for Missing Persons, said that no one can deny the right of families of missing persons to know the truth. “The issue of missing persons is a humanitarian issue, and it needs to be treated exclusively as such. The families of missing persons must be treated with dignity and respect,” said Negovan Mavric, deputy head of the Resource Centre for Missing Persons.

EULEX said that since the start of its mandate, experts have carried out 725 operations on the ground and 197 exhumations that resulted in the identification of 332 persons. “These figures are not very important for those that have not found their loved ones yet. However, they speak of the work that has been done so far and they are an indicator of our commitment to continue this work so that we can give some answers to the families of missing persons,” said EULEX’s Forensic Anthropologist Luisa Marinho.

Germany: We expect unconditional implementation of Kosovo-Serbia agreement (RTK)

The Office of the German Chancellor told RTK in a written response today that Germany welcomes the agreement reached in Ohrid and the annex for the implementation of the agreement. “Germany recalls that together with its European and international partners, it encourages both parties to implement in good faith and without condition all their respective obligations, including the Association of Serb-majority municipalities,” the response notes.

Krasniqi: Management Team didn’t respond to invitation for meeting (RFE)

Kosovo’s Minister for Local Government, Elbert Krasniqi, said today that according to a decision from 2020, the Management Team that drafts the statute of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, is supposed to report to the ministry. Krasniqi said that he called a meeting with the members of the Management Team for April 18 but that none of them responded to the invitation.

In a Facebook post today, Krasniqi published earlier decisions based on which the members of the Management Team were appointed or changed. He said there are three decisions by the Ministry for Local Government and the Kosovo Government on the appointment or removal of Management Team members, based on the Brussels Agreement in 2013. “The first decision was taken in June 2013, during the Thaci government. The second decision was taken in June 2016, during the Mustafa government. The third decision was taken in September 2020, during the Hoti government,” he wrote.

The Management Team was foreseen in the 2013 agreement for normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The team is tasked with drafting the statute for the Association of Serb-majority municipalities. The team needs to consist of representatives of the four Serb-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo.

Krasniqi said today that only two members of the team are the same from the original composition: Igor Kalamar and Dejan Radojkovic. “The other two were changed constantly. Danijela Vujicic is the newest member of the team, according to a decision in 2020. She has also been appointed coordinator of the Management Team,” he added.

The news website notes that Vujicic is a member of the Serbian Parliament from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party. She comes from Mitrovica North, one of the four Serb-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo.

Vela: Meja massacre, a crime that Serbia cannot deny! (media)

Chief of Staff to Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, Blerim Vela, in a Twitter post today, said that “today we remember the 377 innocent Kosovo Albanian civilians killed by Serbia’s police and military at the Meja Massacre of 1999. This was the largest massacre of the Kosovo war. Years later, 309 of the corpses were found in a mass grave in Batajnica. A crime that Serbia cannot deny!”

   

Serbian Language Media 

  Dacic meets with US ambassador to UN (Tanjug)

Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic met with US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield in New York on Wednesday to discuss the upcoming UN Security Council session on the work of UNMIK and development of Serbia-US bilateral relations, Tanjug news agency reports.

The parties agreed that dynamic political dialogue and discussions by officials of the two countries represented an opportunity to exchange views on priority topics for development of bilateral relations, achieve greater transparency and strengthen trust, especially in a year marking 142 years of Serbia-US diplomatic relations.

Dacic expressed the hope US State Secretary Antony Blinken would visit Serbia in the period to come and that an exchange of visits at presidential level would also take place soon.

Speaking about the upcoming UNSC session, Dacic said “UNMIK's work in the mission's full capacity was of great significance to Serbia in view of the current delicate situation in Serbia's southern province”.

Speaking about the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Dacic reiterated Belgrade would retain a constructive position on European proposal and implementation of an action plan aimed at further normalisation of its relations with Pristina, but also reiterated that Serbia had red lines it would not give up on, as noted by its President Aleksandar Vucic on several occasions over the past months.

He said the next high-level meeting of the dialogue would be held in Brussels on May 2 and that Vucic would be attending.

He noted that overall success of the European proposal depended on the establishment of a Community of Serb Municipalities as a commitment undertaken ten years ago by the signing of the Brussels Agreement.

Making that move conditional upon a review of Pristina's Council of Europe membership application is impermissible and Serbia strongly opposes such developments, Dacic noted.

Thomas-Greenfield called for implementation of Belgrade-Pristina agreements reached in Ohrid and noted that the US would continue to be actively engaged in providing support to Belgrade and Pristina in meeting their commitments with a view to achieving predictable and peaceful relations, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

15-year prison verdict to Goran Stanisic upheld (Radio KIM)

Kosovo Supreme Court has upheld the verdict of 15 years in prison to Goran Stanisic (56) from Lipljan for war crimes against the civilian population, Stanisic’s defence lawyer Ljubomir Pantovic told the media, Radio KIM reports.

Pantovic also said the Supreme Court dismissed the complaint for protection of legality he had filed earlier. Pantovic requested from the Supreme Court to acquit Stanisic given that witnesses accused him of the war crimes only after his arrest and to send the case to re-trial.

Following the decision of the Supreme Court Pantovic announced that he will file a complaint for violation of the right to fair trial to the Constitutional Court. “That is the only legal remedy left to us. Kosovo Constitutional Court is the next and the final instance. There all legal remedies are exhausted, all possibilities to have this verdict revoked, disputed or amended”, he said.  

Stanisic was arrested at Jarinje crossing point in July 2019 under the charges of allegedly taking part in the murder of five members of an Albanian family from the village of Slovinje near Lipljan in 1999, and for expulsion of the civilian population.

The Basic Court in Pristina in October 2021 sentenced him to 20 years in prison, which was reduced to 15 years by the Court of Appeals. Stanisic is in a prison in Podujevo, Radio KIM recalled. 

Dacic thanks Greece's Syriza party for supporting Serbia, Vucic thanks Azerbaijan (Politika, Tanjug, media)

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on Thursday thanked Greece's Syriza opposition party for its unequivocal public support to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia.

"I want to express my deepest gratitude to our Greek brothers and friends from Syriza, Alexis Tsipras and Georgios Katrougalos, for their unequivocal public support to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia", Dacic wrote in a Twitter post.

Condemning Greece's abstention in a Council of Europe vote on Pristina’s application for admission to the organisation, Syriza has said Athens' position, taken without explanation or consultations with political parties in Greece, practically changed the country's firm stance on the Kosovo and Metohija issue, Politika has reported.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met with Azerbaijani Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population Sahil Babayev on Thursday, thanking him for Azerbaijan's recent vote in the Council of Europe (CoE) on Pristina’s application for admission to the organisation.

"As always, an excellent conversation with Serbia's proven friends about all significant issues of interest to both countries, further advancement of bilateral relations, military cooperation, investments as well as plans to boost the partnership in tourism and energy", Vucic wrote in a post on his buducnostsrbijeav Instagram profile.

He added that he had thanked Babayev and the Republic of Azerbaijan for the "commitment to international law, demonstrated by the vote in the CoE". "Serbia will remember that act because it sees it as an expression of sincere friendship", he noted.

He said he had also taken the opportunity to send his cordial regards to Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and added that they would meet again soon.

SNS to hold extraordinary assembly session on May 27 (Tanjug, media)

Serbian ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) will hold an extraordinary Assembly session in Belgrade on May 27, the SNS announced on Wednesday.

The decision to call an extraordinary session of the party Assembly was made by SNS leader Aleksandar Vucic earlier in the day.

Post of Serbia employees released after being apprehended by police in northern Kosovo (RTS)

Following several-hour long keeping at customs point in Mitrovica South, employees of Post of Serbia were able to continue the trip and transfer the money to the post office premises in different parts of Kosovo and Metohija, Post of Serbia director in Kosovo Ivan Milojevic told RTS.

He added the employees were released upon explaining a procedure that is ongoing for years. He also said that police stopping and apprehending employees of Post with the money has not happened recently.

Another Serb from Kosovo arrested for undermining the constitutional order of Serbia (KoSSev, Kontakt plus radio, KiM radio)

Portal KoSSev reported yesterday afternoon that another member of the alleged criminal group from Kosovo, which, according to the Serbian judicial authorities, was charged with joint action to overthrow the constitutional order of the Republic of Serbia - was arrested at the end of last week at the Brnjak crossing. 

The portal reported that the person was a man of Serbian nationality S.P. from Zubina Potok, who was accused of personally talking to people and lobbying them to turn to Pristina. 

As in the previous case, when D.N was arrested in Jarinje, the information was missing from the official addresses, reported KoSSev adding that the defence attorney of the arrested person gave a statement. 

The lawyer, Ahmed Delimedjac told KoSSev that he ''believes that these are purely political and fabricated accusations'' because of the fact, as he said,  ''the Serbian police took statements from the alleged victims, people from Kosovo, over the phone, and that the entire procedure was conducted according to police reports/notes''.

   

International 

  Inadequate State of Social Services in Kosovo, Analysis Shows (Prishtina Insight)

Centers for Social Work face challenges in providing proper services to citizens, in 28 municipalities of Kosovo.

A report by the Ministry of Justice and Coalition of NGOs for Child Protection in Kosovo, KOMF, that was presented on Wednesday, in Prishtina showed that understaffed social work centers have been unable to support the public appropriately.

The small number of staff and psychologists, insufficient spaces and outdated equipment are just some of the basic problems CSW face in Kosovo.

The Minister of Justice, Albulena Haxhiu, has promised to support these institutions.

“We are committed to do our best to provide the necessary financial support for the operation of the Centers for Social Work. In this regard, our next step will be the creation of a sustainable contracting scheme for the non-governmental sector, with the aim of providing direct, sustainable and quality services,” she explained. 

However, the director of KOMF, Donjeta Kelmendi, said that some legal changes should be made regarding social services.

“It is really urgent to make changes in the Law on Social and Family Services, the Law on Local Government Finances, the Law on Procurement, so that we have some kind of a sustainable social services scheme,” she added.

Meanwhile, the head of UNICEF office in Kosovo, Nona Zicherman, spoke about the importance of social centers in the country .

“In Kosovo, social services play an essential role in supporting children and families, identifying and managing risks. The social protection system currently in place struggles with liberal exemptions to prevent violence and abuse,” she said.

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