Remarks by Ambassador Robert Wood, Substitute Representative for Exclusive Political Issues, at a UN Protection Authorities Rundown on Kosovo

.Oct 30, 2024.Thank you, Madam Head of state. And thank you Exclusive Rep Ziadeh, for your instruction. Our experts wish to recognize the attempts you as well as your team at UNMIK have actually made in advancing interethnic conversation and the policy of law reform in Kosovo.Our company are actually responsible to additionally recognize there are other UN resident firms in Kosovo that are actually more appropriately performing this kind of job.

After a quarter of a century, UNMIK has long outlived its own initial directed, as well as the USA asks for the Council to examine UNMIK in Kosovo and also pursue its possible sundown.There are actually much higher demands on the Protection Council’s time, as all of us recognize, and these rundowns must be actually minimized to annual, exclusive appointments. Our company likewise advise UNMIK, in future coverage, to retain a neutral view, to better mirror UNMIK’s impartiality.It has actually been actually more than a year due to the fact that the Serb paramilitary attack on the Kosovo Police Office near the Banjska Abbey in northern Kosovo, and Serbia has actually made no meaningful progress in incriminating those included, consisting of the self-proclaimed forerunner of the attack, Milan Radoicic. We prompt total accountability based on the policy of rule.Our experts additionally remain interested over unskillful activities taken by the Authorities of Kosovo, which are actually inconsistent with Kosovo’s commitment to overcome the EU-facilitated Conversation.

These actions have an effect on the welfare of susceptible and also non-majority communities as well as weaken the course to normalization in between Kosovo and also Serbia.The USA discusses the ambition of the people of the Western side Balkans, consisting of Kosovo and also Serbia, to build more significant regional economic integration, foster regional reliability, freedom and also multi-ethnic societies, and to enshrine the regulation of law.The EU-facilitated Conversation is actually the agreed course for normalization in between Serbia as well as Kosovo as well as progression towards membership in International institutions.The United States remains to partner with the EU, the OSCE, as well as NATO partners to keep pressures reduced in the north of Kosovo to discourage escalatory actions through either celebration and to push forward on executing all Dialogue devotions between Serbia and Kosovo, including bureaucracy of the Organization of Serb-majority Towns. Our experts warn each sides versus unskillful or even escalatory activities as well as urge all of them to address problems within the Conversation’s platform.The ultimate objective of the USA stays ultimate mutual recognition.Thank you, Madam President.