Saturday, January 14, 2006

Missing persons to be discussed at Kosovo status talks, says negotiator

Text of report by Radio-Television Kosovo TV on 13 January

[Announcer] One of the prime issues in talks on Kosova's [Kosovo's] status is going to be missing persons issues, says member of the Kosova negotiation team Veton Surroi. He met the chairman of the government committee for the missing.

[Reporter] Shedding light on missing persons has to be discussed with the UN special envoy and deputy envoy for Kosova status talks, Martti Ahtisaari and Albert Rohan, which is expected to take place in the coming weeks.

[Veton Surroi] Kosova status belongs to family members and all those missing who sacrificed their lives so Kosova can be independent. I have raised this issue with the Kosova negotiation team and I will raise it at the next meeting again.

[Reporter] The issue of the missing has to be solved by more pressure being applied by the international community on the Serbian government, emphasized Nysrete Kumnova. She called for greater engagement by the negotiation team on the issue of missing persons.

[Representative of the government committee for missing persons Nysrete Kumnova] This issue has to be raised at the highest levels of international and local governments. Light must be shed on all the missing and all mortal remains of our loved ones returned.

[Reporter] It has been evaluated that shedding light on missing persons is a moral and political obligation of the Kosova institutions and the negotiation team.

Source: RTK TV, Pristina, in Albanian 1830 gmt 13 Jan 06

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was waiting for Cviljus to say something like "stop making up stories of dissapeared Albanians, because there aren't any" so I could laugh at his total ignorance.

Anonymous said...

This issue is an obstacle for having decent relations between Serbs and Albanians and it should be not pushed to the side.

Anonymous said...

Serbia returning remains of 41 ethnic Albanian war victims

In regard to the number of missing in Kosova:

15:16 2005-11-25
Serbian authorities were to return the remains of 41 ethnic Albanian war victims to Kosovo on Friday, a United Nations official said. The bodies belong to ethnic Albanian civilians believed to have been killed by Serb forces during the 1998-1999 war and removed from Kosovo in an apparent cover-up attempt by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
The remains are missing persons from towns such as Suva Reka, Meja, Djakovica and Kosovo Polje, said Valerie Brasey, an official from the U.N.-run office for missing persons and forensics.

Out of some 836 bodies of Kosovo Albanians found in mass graves in Serbia, more than 630 have been returned to Kosovo so far.

There are some 2,557 people still unaccounted for from the Kosovo conflict.