Italian newspaper writes about Behgjet Pacolli and his ties to Russia

The businessman who created his career between Russia and Kazakhstan, the former head of state, a friend of dictators, today he is foreign minister, writes Italian newspaper “Letera 43”, for Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Behgjet Pacolli.

Even when he was president of his country, Kosovo, Behgjet Pacolli was a citizen of another state, Switzerland.

This is a detail in his career that well describes the elusive and grim figure of Pristina Foreign Minister, a billionaire entrepreneur, friend of many dictators and a clever politician, capable of reaching key locations in Balkan geopolitical, controlling only a small part of MPs, the paper writes.

Behgjet Pacolli, has just written a new page in his history, abandoning the opposition's turn and deciding to back the so-called “Coalition of commanders”, who came to power in Kosovo after three months of political crisis, the Italian newspaper says.

But Pacolli wasn't always interested in politics. Born from the small village of Kosovo, Marec, the current foreign minister has lived a large part of his life working as entrepreneurs away from his land.

After studying in Germany in the 1970s, in 1991, he founded the construction company “Mabetex” in Lugano, with which he traveled throughout the world.

The first “has done its work in Russia, in the remote Siberian city of Yakutski, in the early 1990s”, writes former “Financial Times” in Moscow Andrew Jack in his book “Inside Putins Russia” (Oxford University Press, 2005).

However, for the construction of “Mabetex” in Moscow's opera and the Kremlin Palace, investigations were opened under charges that “Mabetx” had paid 66 million Russian commission and officers, but that in connection with this Swiss prosecution had no evidence and investigations had been suspended.

After his entry into politics and after Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence, Pacolli assures himself that he has distanced himself from business, leaving the administration of his empire to his family, but the facts tell another story.

In 2011, the AKR leader succeeded in electing the head of state, promising Hashim Thaci that he will have his party's support for him at that time to be elected prime minister.

Behgjet Pacolli is now head of Kosovo diplomacy and it is legal to ask yourself whether his ties with the Kremlin, as well as to marry a Russian woman (after a brief marriage with singer Anna Oxa) can now help Kosovo improve its position on the international stage, dialogue with Moscow, Belgrade's leading ally.

According to Dejan Anastasijevic, veteran of Serbian journalism, this scenario is unlikely, because “nobody in Belgrade knows Pacolli”, but the results can only be assessed in the coming months, when the Serbian-Kosovo dialogue resumes in Brussels. /Insider. com