Thaci: Tonight I want to repeat that for me Kosovo is always first

Thaci has completed his address to citizens after returning from The Hague.

He has provided details for four days of interviewing in The Hague.

President Thaci's full address following his return from The Hague: 

Dear countrymen and my fellow citizens,

Brothers and brothers of a language wherever you are, every language and ethnicity here in Kosovo,

Dear friends, you who serve friendly states in Pristina,

And, honored international partners,

During this week, for four days in a row, I have committed my civic and institutional obligation to appear before prosecutors at Specialised Chambers in The Hague.

I've completed about 30 hours of confrontation with the body of the prosecution body, where I've been familiar with all their claims and I've answered their questions.

I have full respect for the dawning process, to the end, to the truth and my role in the liberation fight for freedom and independence.

Because of ethical and legal limitations I cannot get into concrete details of this confrontation. But I can't share anything with you.

I'm aware that all of you who have stood by me with brotherly care can rightly have your questions about the Special Prosecutor's claims against me.

Dear citizens,

Three things I want to tell you by looking for your human understanding not to go into the details of these confrontations.

First: as I said before I passed the court threshold, the glorious story of the liberation war and statehood of independent, democratic and European Kosovo cannot be rewritten by anyone!

Today I tell you with conviction that not only will this process rewrite this story written with the blood and sacrifice of an entire people in the struggle for freedom but, rather, by this process, whatever its course and duration, the glorious story of resistance, survival and triumph over an conqueror, who sought to wipe out the Albanian people of Kosovo from the face of the earth with the broom of ethnic fascism, will become forever immune to no one!

Kosovo is also a vision. And the debt we owe to our children and our children.

Those who are growing up in this country and those who will be born and live in this land who want to deny us, burnt and bloody land, where we together are obliged to build the way of democratic and multiethnic coexistence.

So we strengthen democracy, grow well-being and build the bridges of lasting peace between ourselves and our neighbours.

Kosovo today needs more than ever for civilized dialogue between political forces, for institutional stability, for good governance and civic and political unity, especially in dialogue for its eventual recognition by Serbia and the whole world.

Kosovo today needs to cultivate diversity of thought and live with a healthy debate between the government and the opposition.

But, at the same time, we have to talk to the world in one voice and develop dialogue with Serbia with an exemplary unity what we had in Rambouillet, Vienna and Brussels.

noble companions,

I was a warrior in service to Kosovo yesterday, and you gave me everything.

You have entrusted me with everything a man can give to his country, his people!

For the construction of new Kosovo, European Kosovo, home to all its citizens.

Take delight in your faith!

I am grateful to them forever!

I wasn't perfect, but I've always tried my best for my country and for you.

I want to shake every one of you hands, hug everyone and assure you that I will come out with every clean cell as a tear at the end of this journey that goes on with you and for you.

Second: this next process is in the course of 21 years of accusations, slanders and factories on the Kosovo Liberation Army and efforts by the people of Kosovo for freedom and state.

But, this process will permanently seal the KLA's historic role as an irreplaceable and irreplaceable role for freedom won for all generations that will enjoy Kosovo as an independent and democratic state.

These ethnic disdains, the persecution of Albanians from the womb, the genocide acts against the people with historical rights on this land, the depression that culminates with ethnic cleansing up to the genocide scale will be one of the darkest pages of the past, which will never be able to return.

And third: I, who had the fate and honour to have a role in the war and on the path of independence and statehood in Kosovo, feel even more obedient today, even more determined than before this confrontation for the great value of labor and personal sacrifice to bring to an end the dawn of this 22-year-old story.

A story filled with injuries caused by charges against me and our common war with the US, with NATO, with the states of the European Union and other friendly states, to free the people of Kosovo from Slobodan Milosevic's fascist dictatorship and Serbia's state.

My dears,

Tonight I want to repeat that for me Kosovo is always the first.

If for Kosovo I was willing to give my life when I was a young boy, today that I am a gray parent I have no doubt that my duty is to protect Kosovo, not allowing the process that has involved me and my fellow fighters unjustly, to prevent the great work ahead of Kosovo.

Therefore, thanking you from the bottom of the heart for this respect and nationwide solidarity, I would like to ask all of you to place Kosovo on political party differences, on daily preferences and frustrations.

Kosovo is a bond that we have from our fathers, from our reborns, from our martyrs, from our heroes, from Hasan Pristina, Shota and Azem, from Adam Jashari, Adam Demaci and Ibrahim Rugova, and hundreds of thousands of others who are the angels protecting this land.