UNMIK: Kosovo's undefined status is not good for anyone!

Deputy UNMIK chief Jennifer Brush said that Kosovo's undefined status is not good for people's lives

Kosovo's undefined status is not good for people's lives, be they Albanians or non-Albanians, says deputy UNMIK chief Jennifer Brush.

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- I hope that the Brussels dialogue will help to achieve a normalisation in the relations between Serbia and Kosovo to ensure normal life - Brush has said on a Serbian-language talk show aired by several local television channels in Kosovo.

- I may be wrong, but I often say that Serbia and Kosovo are held hostage by each other because Serbia's prospects will be limited for as long as there is no solution for Kosovo - the same goes the other way around, with Kosovo's prospects to remain limited for as long as a common path is not found with Serbia - she said.

Brush noted that she wants the dialogue to produce good results, but that Brussels should not be a mere theatre where solutions reached by Serbian and Kosovo leaders are just welcomed with a loud applause.

There must be results on the ground, she noted.

Brush said that she is unable to comment in more detail on recent allegations by the UN Advisory Committee on Human Rights about Serb reporters who have been reported missing in Kosovo.

The committee urged UNMIK to publicly admit responsibility over its failure to conduct an efficient investigation into the disappearances of Dragan Stevanovic and Ivan Majstorovic and apologise to their families.

It also noted that the investigation of the case of Radio Pristina reporter Marijan Melonasi, who went missing in 2000, began as late as in 2005, ending immediately.

Brush said that she herself is dissatisfied with this, adding that UNMIK did what it could in the chaos that reigned at the time.

There have been many tragedies and every tragedy is horrible, but I cannot give an answer regarding those individual cases, because they are complex cases and I do not have all the details at this time, said Brush, noting that she was not in Kosovo at the time.

Speaking about the mass migration of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo over the past few months, the deputy UNMIK chief said that the possible reasons could be the poor economic situation, as well as disappointment over the uncertainty of the direction that Kosovo is heading in 15 years after the armed conflict ended.

People may be a little disappointed with the political prospects, it might be that they do not know whether Kosovo, say, will become a member of the United Nations, the European Union, etc., and I think that that, too, has a role to play, she said.

The people are disappointed because they fought to obtain some international status and have the state recognised, which is still not happening after so many years, the deputy UNMIK chief said.

Kosovo has been placed under UN interim administration (UNMIK) after international forces entered the southern Serbian province following the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement, which brought the NATO aggression and the bombing of Serbia to an end, in June 1999.

However, with the support of the United States and Western Europe's leading powers, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo-Metohija unilaterally proclaimed independence on February 17, 2008. Serbia does not recognise it.

(Telegraf.rs / Tanjug)