Press Briefing Notes 09 April 2008 UNMIK Director / Division of Public Information Alexander Ivanko KPS Spokesperson Veton Elshani KFOR Spokesperson Col. Jean-Luc Cotard OSCE Spokesperson Elli Flen EU Pillar Spokesperson Mechthild Henneke UNMIK Director / Division of Public Information Alexander Ivanko No point from UNMIK. KPS Spokesperson Veton Elshani Good morning to all, on the 15 December 2007 at the Police Station South in Dardania a case of fraud was reported, in which case 5000 euros were lost by a citizen. A suspect named Rexhep Sinani, born in Podujeva and Shaban Bytyçi, born in Fushë Kosovë 1968, were arrested yesterday on the 8 April 2008 at around 16:15. Rexhep Sinani was also known with two other nicknames or names Driton Halili and Gashi. He was introducing himself as a senior officer of Customs Service, Airport and Vala and he was deceiving people that he would find employment for them for a considerable amount of money to be paid to him. The indictment prepared by the Police Station submitted to the prosecution concerns serious crimes of fraud. It is suspected that Mr. Sinani is involved in other cases and every person that was deceived was damaged on an average from one to five thousand euros. We would like to ask all people who saw the picture of Sinani, which was published in the central media, that should they recognize this person and had bad experiences with this person to come to the Police Station and report their cases. On another note, today on 9 April, starting as of 14:00 in Police Station II, which is located in the Muhaxherët neighborhood, the confiscated documentation will be displayed as a result of yesterday s operation. These operations were conducted by the police units from Pristina and Border Police and all of the material displayed will be in the Police Station containing different personal ID cards, driving licenses, police insurances, and other necessary equipment for reproduction of these materials and everything will be introduced by the Police spokesperson and the representative of Border Police.
In Fushë Kosova last night, 500 grams of narcotics were seized and all these materials will be displayed in the building of Police Station II in Muhaxheri neighborhood. Thank you. KFOR Spokesperson Col. Jean-Luc Cotard Good morning, today I have a short statement which is important of course, so I have no particular statement on KFOR HQ level, but want to emphasize the work of the Task Force Center. At the end of the press conference we will be able to meet major Galvin who is dealing with the matter I will tell you about. Task Force Center will organize on Friday (inaudible) activity, the aim of this activity is to help small business enterprises. It has been granted with 75.000 euros from Finish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to create employment, to strengthen municipality position in supporting local employment and to give the necessary tools for developing future employment projects. All the ethnicities in the municipality of Pristina, including Gracanica have been beneficiaries of this current scheme. The range of new businesses includes a dressmaker, bakery, stonecutter, tailor and egg farm. If you want to have better explanation, you will have to ask major Galvin who is here in the room. Thank you. OSCE Spokesperson Elli Flen Good morning, no announcements from the OSCE. EU Pillar Spokesperson Mechthild Henneke We have a KTA Board ongoing at the moment, and at 16:00 in the afternoon there will be a statement at the KTA compound. UNMIK Director / Division of Public Information Alexander Ivanko Any questions? BBC: Mr. Ivanko, did you receive any guidelines from New York whether to allow or not to allow Serbian elections, both local and parliamentary ones? Alex: We have been in contact with the Contact Group, with our Headquarters as well as with the Government, now we received on Friday a letter from Minister Samardjic, where it seems like the Serbian Government is asking for permission or for an authorization to conduct local elections. We are now drafting an answer to this letter, the thrust of this letter will be along the lines that we will clarify that Serbia has never held local elections here in Kosovo, as is implied in Samardjic s letter, and we will also clarify that if Serbia decides to hold local elections here in Kosovo, it will be a violation of 1244, of the SRSG s executive mandate and will have no legal validity. That is where we stand right now, I have nothing to add to this. BBC: What about parliamentary elections?
Alex: Parliamentary elections is a different issue, probably we are tilting towards the previous position we had, which is neither support nor hinder. But I cannot tell you that exactly because the letter has not been sent yet. Zëri: Alex, has Mr. Samardjic clarified the idea, the motivation on why they want to organize local elections in Kosovo? Alex: Actually it was a very short letter and I don t think it actually clarified, it was basically referring to a Government decision from last Thursday, to hold elections in Kosovo, asking for, seems like it is asking for an authorization from UNMIK. It is a very short letter, and we are drafting an answer which we should be sending probably this week. Kosova Sot: Mr. Ivanko, last week Pillar IV made it known that EU has decided to terminate the funding for Pillar IV. Can you tell us how long New York will be supporting this and have you decided to continue the contracts of UNMIK staff until 31 of December 2008? Alex: The contracts of UNMIK staff depend on the budget of UNMIK. The budget of UNMIK will probably be discussed later this month, and it is up to the General Assembly to decide a) Do we have a budget or not, and b) What type of budget it will be, and based on that, then we will await instructions from New York how to proceed with UNMIK contracts. Radio Blue Sky: Alex, if you say that the conduct of local elections of Serbia in territory of Kosovo is a violation of 1244, then would it be expected from UNMIK to block or disallow their conduct in the territory of Kosovo? Alex: Well, again we are not even sure that Serbia will conduct local elections here in Kosovo because there is generally a view among all the members of the Contact Group that this is a violation of 1244, so let us see what will be the reaction. First we have to send the letter to Minister Samardjic, and then let us wait for his reaction. I will brief you as soon as we have one. Kohavision: When will UNMIK make a decision about the Serbian elections in Kosovo? At what time, when will you make a decision, and please, did you receive any request from the Government of Kosovo about this? Alex: We are in consultation with the Government of Kosovo, of course, and the views of the Government are taken into account as well as the views of our Headquarters and the CG. The position right now, as I told you probably will be that if Serbia decides to hold local elections here, they will be in violation of 1244, executive mandate of the SRSG and have no legal validity. That is where we stand as of today. RTK: If UNMIK would decide finally that there will be no Serbian elections in Kosovo, do you believe that in the north you have enough power, enough strength to close all the
polling stations or anything like that, because we know that on a daily basis the legal authority there is not so much functional, at all. Alex: Well, you are jumping the gun on this one. Let us first finish dealing with Minister Samardjic and see how that develops before I can actually answer that question. Blic: Can you please tell us something concrete: how will UNMIK prevent the organizing of local-parliamentary elections here in Kosovo. So if you say that it is a violation of Resolution 1244, still nothing happened in this regard. Alex: Well as I said you are assuming that Serbia will decide to hold local elections here, which is not really our assumption, a) and b) The only authority that can certify local election results is UNMIK. So if they are not legal, not valid, there are no results. Blic: I am asking you because everyone knows that UNMIK is in power here, but what if Serbia says tomorrow we should organize elections, what concrete measures you will use? Alex: Again you are assuming that Serbia will say that tomorrow, I am not so sure that your assumption is correct, so let us wait and see what Serbia says after they receive our answer to Minister Samardjic. Kosova Sot: Will the 15 June be the end of UNMIK power? I mean on that date the Constitution of Republic of Kosovo will come into power and the Constitutional Framework will not be applied any more. Alex: Well, we will have to, based on that reconfigure and deal with the reality on the ground. How we will deal with the reality on the ground, I cannot tell you now, because we still have a couple of months. But of course, we are not deaf and blind and we know what is happening, so we will have to deal with the reality on the ground. Kohavision: Let us go back to Serbian elections. Yesterday Mr. Solana said that Serbian elections must be north of Mitrovica, Mr. Ivanko. Alex: Well I cannot speak on behalf of Solana, can I? That is a question you should ask Mr. Feith, not me. I told you UNMIK s position. Koha Ditore: Alex, what about the campaign, electoral campaign? Are you going to forbid that or are you going to allow grant everyone who wants to get in? As UNMIK has been quoted that it was a private visit of Mr. Nikolic while he was saying that it was not a private visit. What are going to be your steps this time? Thank you. Alex: It is a good question. The next issue we will deal with is based on the reaction by the Serbian Government to our letter regarding local elections, we will than decide how we will react to anybody entering Kosovo for campaigning purposes.
Koha Ditore: Does this mean in practical terms that you will arrest those guys if they enter without your permission? Alex: Again, you are jumping the gun. As soon as we have the reaction from the Serbian Government to our letter, we will inform you how we will deal with the campaigning here in Kosovo. Right know we don t have a position that will be based on the exchange of letters I assume between the SRSG and Minister Samardjic. RTK: I just need a little bit time to elaborate something with two border check points. This is a question for UNMIK and probably for Ms. Henneke as well. We know we said almost everything about the border check points in the north, there is no Customs staff there etc, etc. We have two border check points with Albania, Cafa e Prushit, Cafa e Morines which are a part of the Gjakova Municipality. Due to the lack of Customs staff there, the transportations of goods is not allowed, I mean not in big amounts. Can we say that UNMIK is treating two corners of one country with double standards, closing the borders for goods with Albania and allowing goods to enter in the north? Mechthild: Well no, I don t think that you can say that. The fact that these two border crossing points that you are mentioning now are only allowed for small amounts of goods for some technical reasons. RTK: Inaudible. Mechthild: Well I find you are comparing apples and pears here. I don t really follow your comparison. Blic: Alexander, you said that Nikolic was on a private visit here in Kosovo so apart of the Contact Group s positions and Solana s position, you allowed Nikolic to have promotive gathering in Gracanica and you endangered the equality of political parties in Serbia. So if you allow Nikolic to organize promotional campaign here than why tomorrow you will not allow Boris Tadic for instance to have his campaign meeting in Gracanica? Because I believe that Tadic is closer to the position of UN and EU than Nikolic. Alex: I think, Nedeljko, that you are very politically correct today, that s good, that s very good. We didn t allow or not allow Nikolic to enter, he never asked us for any permission to enter Kosovo. Well if President Tadic doesn t ask for permission to come here I assume he probably might enter but with Tadic it s a different story he usually when he comes here he does ask for permission as with all the Government Ministers. So they do ask for permission. I think that only Nikolic is the first one as far as I can remember who didn t ask for permission. AP: Alex, has any Government or International Human Rights organization or something similar taken issue with your office over the publication of Carla Del Ponte s book and allegations that KLA soldiers have kidnapped Serbs and sold body parts in Albania?
Alex: Actually you are the first one to ask that question. We have not been asked by any NGO, Human Rights groups, I m not even aware of any request from ICTY on this issue. I think that this is something that you should ask Carla Del Ponte where she got that from but we don t have a clue where this is coming from. RTK: What about the Russian aid? Alex: I was waiting for that one, I did my research. The aid is still in Serbia and right now the Serbian Red Cross is working together with UNMIK to ensure that all the paper work is in place and the aid can enter Kosovo in accordance with all procedures. Now we also have the assurances from the Serbian Red Cross that the aid will go through the Merdare crossing point were there is UNMIK Customs. And as soon as the paper work and procedures are in place then like any other aid, it can enter Kosovo. RTK: How long will this take? Alex: I was told that it will take a week to ten days. Koha Ditore: Mechthild If I may follow up on this issue. When are you going to bring back the Customs in the two gates in the north? The SRSG said himself in an interview that they are working to bring them back quickly but do you have any precise date, week, month, two months before UNMIK starts fazing out, and before you guys from the Pillar IV leave? Is that realistic? Alex: All I can refer to is your own interview with SRSG. Thank you very much.