Ahmetaj Activist: Instead of striving for reconciliation, politicians in Kosovo, Serbia are promoting war

Because they have legitimacy and they have power, because at an individual and social level that reconciliation is already taking place, people are communicating, businessmen are already communicating, their communication is great. But all depend on that political level, politicians have been promoting war for 23 years, and let alone reconcile”, she said.

Ahmetaj said Serbia should take the first serious step towards normalising relations and reconciliation.

“Since Serbia had the greatest, military, social, political power, tension should be reduced slightly, political leaders should have a different approach, more satisfactory in negotiations. However, Serbia is an experienced country and is a country that has fought Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The first step should be to open archives and find 1617 missing persons. We know that not all will be found, but that number is still large”, she said.

Ahmetaj believes the second step towards normalising relations would be for Serbian and Albanian politicians in Brussels, but also elsewhere, to talk more about the past and what it did. According to her, however, it is discouraging that current representatives of states cannot agree to even some much easier things.

The “those around the tables can't agree and make a bigger problem, and let them talk about the past”, she said, followed the Express newspaper.

Ahmetaj called negative rhetoric dangerous, including hate speech in public discourse.

According to her, it is unacceptable for Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti to call Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq “

That rhetoric has returned, especially now in the spring, reminds me of that war drive. We know both professionally and virtually that hate speech simply causes violence in some countries causes genocide like Rwanda. I've been waiting so long for our prime minister to be more careful in this sense, because he's very educated and experienced, not to use that rhetoric... I'm just afraid it can easily provoke violence, as has happened in some other countries”, she says.

Ahmetaj, who was a member of the Preparation Team for the Preparation and Founding of the Commission for Truth and Conciliance in Kosovo, says the team has completed a draft law for the commission, created by former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci. She claims that with Thaci's departure to The Hague, the mandate has ended the Preparation Team.