Security Council briefed on gains, challenges of UN efforts in Kosovo

Meeting to review the latest developments in Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council today heard a report on a number of positive moves in several priority areas, while at the same time was alerted to the need for substantial progress this year to solidify the recent gains.

Briefing the Council in an open meeting, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hédi Annabi stressed that with the formation of the Government on 28 February, the transfer of authority from the UN Interim Administration Mission (UNMIK) had begun and the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government “must now get down to business.”

He also highlighted yesterday’s return of 146 Kosovo Albanians who had been held in Serbian prisons since June 1999, when Yugoslav forces moved approximately 2,000 detainees from Kosovo to other facilities in Serbia following NATO air strikes.

As for other developments, Mr. Annabi drew the Council’s attention to the efforts of UNMIK chief Michael Steiner to encourage Kosovo Serb engagement in the new government and the improvement in security and freedom of movement in the province. He also noted the start of the second weapons amnesty programme, progress against organized crime and the return of refugees.

Following Mr. Annabi’s briefing, Nebojsa Covic, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, stressed that the “most important point that I want to leave with you is that we are currently in a race against time.” Two different forces were going to be pushing harder to come to a final settlement for Kosovo, he said: the ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and, for separate reasons, the international community, which was growing tired of investing resources and energies in the Balkans.

Mr. Covic, who is also President of the Coordination Centre of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia for Kosovo and Metohija, warned that unless progress was made in 2002 among such key issues as institution building and the transformation to a truly multi-ethnic society, troubles lay ahead.

In the ensuing debate, representatives of all 15 Council members took the floor, as did Ambassador Inocencio F. Arias of Spain, who made a statement on behalf of the European Union welcoming the formation of the Kosovo Government and other recent developments. He also encouraged the newly formed institutions and local authorities to work towards making the province a democratic, multi-ethnic society and reiterated the alliance’s commitment to providing it with economic and political support.

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- Security Council meeting