UN launches task force aimed at bolstering returns to Kosovo

Aiming to invigorate returns to Kosovo, the senior United Nations official in the province and its Prime Minister today announced the launch of a new task force that will coordinate policy on the issue.

“Returns is for all of us a top priority,” said the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Kosovo, Michael Steiner. “We want not to create a new bureaucracy, but to have a coordinating forum to turn this priority into reality.”

Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi welcomed the initiative, stressing that integrating non-majority communities now living in Kosovo into the larger society is crucial to future returns.

The Task Force has already agreed on its terms of reference and a strategy for next year.