Haradinaj: More Work on the Issue of Undiscovered Persons

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj has hosted a meeting of the Government Commission for Missing Persons and all organisations dealing with the missing.

Haradinaj said the purpose of today's meeting is that all those who are part and have responsibilities on the issue of missing persons can get together to identify the actions that will be taken further, for progress on this topic.

During the meeting, the prime minister said an assessment of the state of the process should be made, and how to act further with Belgrade authorities about the dawning of the undiscovered.

Haradinaj also laid out the issue of changing the Law on Un finders, asking fellow negotiators to set up ideas to plan a concrete plan on how to proceed.

In this case, the prime minister thanked the British and Swiss government for the continued support and great contribution they have made in this area with many important programmes.

Ibrahim Makolli, chairman of the Kosovo Delegation for talks with Serbia on the issue of missing persons, said such a meeting would enable not only for local but international authorities, that at a certain time roads and modularities should be found, so that the issue of the missing will have an advantage in the process.

Prenk Lotaj, chairman of the Commission on Missing Persons, has first mentioned the remarks family in the Law about missing persons he hopes will soon be changed. Citing it as a serious and difficult issue, Xhemaj said that for now the issue of the dead is considered the most hit category. “we have responsibilities, because over 1600 persons are still identified as missing”, Loray said.

Commending the work that has been done so far, British Ambassador Ruairí O'Connell said that the process should be rushed, because this topic is very sensitive not only to family members, but also to the whole society, by counting three key areas that should be dealt with priority; first, mistakes in identification, and in this direction the British government will continue to support the Institute of Legal Medicine; second, it encourages witnesses to appear and Government to do its best to protect them; and third, justice, and this is not just a matter for family members to find, but for each family to have access to justice.

Switzerland's Ambassador Jean Hubert Lebet thanked Prime Minister Haradinaj for the energy given to this process, convinced that it is now time to move forward and achieve progress.

Chief of Mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross Agim Gashi praised as hopeful the approach of the new government so quickly to put the issue of missing persons in focus and treat it as one of the priorities.

All representatives of the associations of family members of the missing persons stressed the need for the quick identification of their families, setting concrete requirements before the prime minister and the country's institutions.

Bajram Qerkeyni, a member of the Commission for Missing Persons, representative of the Family Associations, called for speeding up the process, appealing to the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo to engage more than so far to whiteen the fate of the undiscovered. There should be pressure on internationals to help us learn the truth about where our loved ones are. And internationals increase pressure and pressure on Serbia; We ask the international community to extract satellite images from their drawers, which would help us know where they are, the missing people of war now 18 years; We ask local institutions to change the Law on Missing Persons as soon as possible, which has also been good, but to worse it has not been fully implemented, and this has disturbed family members even more; Construction of a Central Memorial of the Republic of Kosovo remains the requirement, where undiscovered people will be preserved, even artefacts that are being damaged in Pristina morgue; And all in the end, once again let me appeal to the locals and internationals that are locked up in this process to work and clear the truth about the undiscovered” said Kerkeyny.