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UN head in Kosovo ends term

UN head in Kosovo ends term

Michael Steiner
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Special Representative in Kosovo, Michael Steiner, ended his assignment today after a year and a half’s tenure, during which he reported improvements in security in the ethnically-riven province but warned that huge challenges still remained in bringing Albanians and Serbs together.

In a statement issued by a spokesman at UN headquarters in New York, Mr. Annan expressed his gratitude for Mr. Steiner's contributions to the UN effort in Kosovo and commended "his hard work and dedication."

Mr. Steiner, a senior German diplomat who is to become his country’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, was the third Special Representative and head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) since it was established in 1999, following Hans Haekkerup of Denmark and Bernard Kouchner of France.

His successor will be announced in the near future and the Principal Deputy Senior Representative, Charles Brayshaw of the United States, will act as Officer-in-Charge in the interim.

In his final report to the Security Council last week he said Kosovo was now moving towards the standards that will define its place in Europe, and multi-ethnicity was gradually improving, a testimony to the work UNMIK is conducting in the province.

“When I arrived a year and a half ago, there was no government – despite successful general elections,” he said. “One hundred and fifty-three prisoners from the war were still held in Serbia. In the northern part of Mitrovica, there was a legal vacuum and turbulence. More members of minority communities were leaving Kosovo than returning. Pristina and Belgrade did not talk,” he added.

UNMIK had succeeded in putting together a multi-ethnic government and police force, bringing back prisoners of war, administering parts where there were no regular police patrols and reversing the negative trend in returns, he said.

But he warned: “A lot more work is required for Kosovo to become a truly multi-ethnic society. The slowness of returns and integration remains our most serious shortcoming.”