When Kosovo friend Eliot Engel spoke in the US: No country has touched my heart more than Kosovo

He attended the Bronx public schools, Herbert H. Lehman College and New York Law School. He was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1977 and served there until 1988. In November 1988 he was elected to Congress, where he served at Capitol Hill from 1989 to 2021. Engel missed the preliminary election for the democrat nomination for another mandate against Yamaal Bowman, who was elected in 2020 for the 16th District of Congress in New York.

Engel was an open liberal voice in both Washington and its district. It was often seen in activities in Westchester, especially in those that supported liberal causes.

Former American businessman, and former head of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Commission, and one of Kosovo's biggest supporters, Engel, has represented parts of the Bronx City of New York with a large and politically active ethnic Albanian population for more than three decades, since 1989 and was a leader in Congress that garnered support for the recognition of Kosovo's independence from Serbia in 2008.

His steadfast support for Kosovo over the decades has made him a famous character in Kosovo.

Kosovo has named a street and highway in honour of Engel and has even issued a stamp with its image.

Balkan passion

Even though Engel had been demonizing where his political interests lie during one of his last hearings on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

 

 

I didn't know what passion I would develop for a small corner of Europe called the Balkans», Engel had said.

«I traveled to every country in the Western Balkans several times, met with so many leaders from so many parties, and I have begun to love the rich diversity of cultures, ethnicities and religions», he said.

«But no country has touched my heart more than Kosovo», he said at an entrance that often affected his leading role in American politics in the Balkans over the decades.

Engel entered Congress just as Yugoslavia was breaking apart violently along ethnic lines, and he plunged into many regional disputes through his country on the Foreign Affairs Committee, eventually gaining a reputation as Balkan expert.

He was among the first US lawmakers to call on President Bill Clinton's administration to intervene in 1998 to stop Yugoslav and Serbian forces in Kosovo and was undoubtedly the most vocal lawyer in Congress for recognising the country's US independence a decade later.

Engel had fought for justice for the Bytyqi brothers, three Albanian-Americans who were immediately executed by Serbian police in 1999. Their killers have not been prosecuted.