Representatives of Kosovo's neighboring countries met in Pristina to coordinate efforts on returning around 20,000 persons displaced from the Kosovo war who are willing to return.

Representatives from Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo, dealing with the issue of displaced persons from the 1999 conflict, met in Pristina on Wednesday to discuss regional solutions to a problem persisting 16 years since the war in Kosovo ended.

“If we consider the current pace at which the returnees are being brought back and the budgetary constrains, we will need 20 years to return all these people to Kosovo,” Kosovo's ethnic Serb Minister for Communities and Returns, Dalibor Jevtic, warned.

Titled “Durable solutions for displaced persons from Kosovo,” the working group is dealing with displaced persons and refugees currently located in countries around Kosovo, most of whom are Serbs.

“There are many challenges ... economic, educational, health insurance related issues, even the issue of usurped properties and safety, are all problems that all the institutions need to participate in solving,” continued Jevtic.

The intergovernmental working group, formed last November in Skopje, includes representatives from relevant ministries in the participating countries.

“As long as this issue remains unresolved, and as long as we have displaced persons, the European Integration processes of the entire region will be slowed down,” Jevtic added.

It is estimated that around 20,000 displaced persons are “willing and interested” to return to Kosovo. According to the Minsitry, around 700 will be returned to Kosovo this year.

Dusanka Karamitri, from Macedonia's Ministry of Labour and Social Policies, said that their efforts are focusing on ensuring that the rights of returnees are respected.

“The main goal of our Ministry is not just to help those registered as displaced persons in Macedonia to return to Kosovo, but also to ensure they have access to the rights they are guaranteed as returnees,” Karamitri said.

Dusan Kozev, of the Office for Kosovo in Serbia, said the same issues that were present at the time of the conflict still burden the returnees today.

“The problem is that 16 years since the conflict, issues that were prevalent even then, such as the integration of the various communities, languages, religions… are still unresolved,” Kozev said.

“It is in our interest to solve this on a regional level by including those actively involved in their community and creating a framework and a basis which we can add on to with concrete plans and ideas,” Kozev added.

The initiative is being funded by the OSCE, the UNHCR and the European Union Office in Kosovo.

Kosovo is not part of the Sarajevo Process, a regional initiative including Croatia, Bosnian and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, that aims to deal with the issue of refugees and returnees from the 1991-1995 conflicts.

The returnee issued dates back to the end of the Kosovo conflict, when over 200,000 Serbs and non-Albanians fled the country following the collapse of Serbian rule.

Only a small fraction of that number have since returned, partly because of their poor economic prospects in Kosovo and partly because of popular hostility towards returnees.