UNMIK chief welcomes Kosovo government's readiness for more talks with Serbia

The Kosova [Kosovo] government is ready to continue talks on technical issues with Serbia whenever the international mediators assess that the conditions have been created. Acting Prime Minister Adem Salihaj made this comment on Friday [18 March] after his meeting with Kosova chief administrator Soeren Jessen-Petersen.

"We are ready to start talks on technical issues, such as return and energy, at any time. The Kosova government is ready for these talks whenever the international mediators assess that the conditions for these talks have been created," Salihaj said.

Salihaj further said that at this meeting, Jessen-Petersen and he discussed three main issues: the security situation, dialogue on missing persons and implementation of standards.

"We assessed that the security situation is stable. The citizens of Kosova have proved their maturity. We also assessed as very constructive the meeting of the working groups on missing persons in Belgrade. It is a good beginning, and it created preconditions for the continuation of this process," Salihaj asserted.

As for the standards, "we assessed that the work towards the standards implementation is going well. Most of the standards have been realized to a great extent. There is stagnation in some standards, but we are working to eliminate that stagnation," he said.

In the meantime, Jessen-Petersen said: "The institutions of Kosova, the ShPK [Kosovo Police Service], UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] Police and Kfor [Kosovo Force], have done an excellent job in maintaining the security situation.

"It is an honour for all the citizens of Kosova that the security situation has been maintained. It is also an honour for the institutions of Kosova, the ShPK, but also for UNMIK and Kfor - their cooperation and the excellent job they did in maintaining order over the past few days." [Passage omitted]

"I welcome acting Prime Minister Salihaj's statement that, in addition to the dialogue on missing persons, Prishtina is ready to talk to Belgrade about other technical issues, about the issue of return and energy, and I am also glad that Serbian Prime Minister [Vojislav] Kostunica is in favour of dialogue. This is good news. I think we have positive moves ahead and these moves are important for Prishtina as well as Belgrade," Jessen-Petersen said. [Passage omitted]

Source: Koha Ditore, Pristina, in Albanian 19 Mar 05 p 2