Mitrovica Union Halil Matoshi calls Agim Bahtiriin folklore

The town of Mitrovica, currently managed by two municipalities -- the southern one -- inhabited by Albanian majority and northern municipalities inhabited by Serb majority.

The petition, with citizens' signatures for uniting the town of Mitrovica, has been handed over to the Kosovo Assembly on 16 January, while Bahtiri had asked that the petition be addressed and that there be a decision by institutions on the Mitrovica issue.

But, Halil Matoshi, political adviser to Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, speaking of Radio Free Europe, has described the initiative of southern Mitrovica Mayor Agim Bahtiri, who is backed up with the petition of 17 thousand citizens. According to him, in the spirit of laws stemming from the Kosovo Constitution which is built on the principles of the Ahtisaari Document, under which only one city of Mitrovica, which is administered by two municipalities -- southern and northern -- is declared independence of Kosovo.

This is a national interest of state and central organs and does not belong to either of the mayors of Mitrovica municipalities. It's a folk initiative, just based on folklore. I don't know if there's any support or just rhetoric, but I don't believe there can be institutional support, except for support through rhetoric. Ahtisaari's package does not depend on the mayors, but on central state institutions. It means, such a matter concerns the country's Constitution rather than one's political will or good wishes”, Matosi stressed.

But, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, through a post on the social network Facebook, on January 22nd, has voiced support for uniting the town of Mitrovica.

The co-ordination of the city of Mitrovica is an unstoppable process. At the meeting with Chairman Bahtiri we concluded that the citizens of Mitrovica have spoken their word. The institutions are now in line: The government, Parliament and Presidency” has written President Thaci. However, he has not specified whether he supports the extinction of the current municipalities that manage the city.

On the other hand, Goran Rakiq, chairman of the Northern Mitrovica municipality, has since rejected Bahtir's initiative. For more days ago, through a communique for the media, he has praised President Thaci's statement as an attack on peace “shaped as warning of the annexation of Northern Mitrovica”. In the communiqué it is said that Serbs will not allow the unification of the northern part with the southern part of Mitrovica, because, as “ky has been said, it is a uverture for ethnic cleansing of Serbs” from Mitrovica.

Former Deputy Minister of Local Power Management Bajram Gecaj tells Radio Free Europe that the union of the city of Mitrovica under the administration of only one municipality, for the time being, is an idea with a completely unrealistic possibility to realise.

For this to happen under these present circumstances, I see completely unrealistic. However, what I see is a desire of the current (of the South Mitrovica municipality of Agim Bahtiri) to create some folklore, or symbolic, with which it covers its failures in the South Mitrovica municipality of”, Gecaj stressed.

According to Gekaj, the law envisions that the two municipalities -- in this case of Mitrovica's city -- are required to approve the two municipalities. Later, such a proposal should be prosecuted in the Kosovo Assembly, which requires approval through a double vote, meaning two-thirds of the votes of minority communities' deputies. But, as he pointed out, currently the Serbian List, which represents with 10 deputies the Serb community in the Kosovo Assembly, would be unable to merge both municipalities into one single for Mitrovica management.

Current legal provisions envision the possibility of establishing a joint board of both Mitrovica city municipalities, which could then manage joint issues.