19 minutes agoAlbania's UN representative: there is no kind of similarity between Kosovo, Ukraine
Periskopi(4 years ago)
(4 years ago)Albania's permanent representative to the UN, Ferit Hoxha, at the first conference of the Albanian presidency of the UN Security Council responded to media interest on several issues, including the stance regarding a parallelism between Donbas in Ukraine and Kosovo. Asked if there were similarities between them, Ambassador Hoxha [...]
Asked if there is any similarity between them, Ambassador Hoxha said that “from the external appearance, we do not see any similarities between Kosovo as an independent state and unprotested Russian aggression in Ukraine and the pre-fabricated pieces of Donbas, for the simple reason because there is no kind of similarity of”.
And for the sake of truth, Kosovo has no resemblance to any other case in the world. Operation NATO in 1999 followed an intensive diplomatic campaign by the UN and the Contact Group, where Russia is also a member. There are 8 Security Council resolutions dealing with Kosovo before Resolution 1244 that established the UNMIK mission still there. Then, the Security Council singled out ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and refugees as a security threat and mission NATO ended serious human rights violations, the killings of civilians and documented atrocities. Moreover, the International Court of Justice ruled that Kosovo's independence in 1999 did not violate international law. The same court dismissed Russian claims of genocide that Ukraine had exercised against the Russian minorities in Ukraine and ordered Russia to stop because it saw no reason to back the genocide claim”, Ambassador Hoxha followed.
“Today, there are many organizations that can deal with complaints from the Russian population in Ukraine. But Russia chose another way, went to war. Finally, Kosovo is not a matter of peace and security; it is not a question to be discussed, according to chapter 7. Today, Kosovo is a matter of building the state, performing institutions and developing civil society”, Hoxha stressed.
The “seen from the perspective of Albania, the neighbouring country of Kosovo, the Western Balkans is the rapidly developing region. We don't forget what happened, but we haven't impressed our minds on the past, but we look towards the future, how we can make the region move together according to the deserved Euro-Atlantic perspective”, Ambassador Ferit Hoxha concluded.
