British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook Press Conference

Pristina, 24 April 2001.

Good afternoon.  Are you all ready?  Good.  I am sorry to keep you waiting.  I am returning to Kosovo for my first visit for 2 years.  I am impressed in how far Kosova has come in that period. As I drove around the province today I saw signs of new building. The first sight I saw on leaving the airport was a sign from the European Union demonstrating that that site will be the site for 1200 new homes built by the European Union.  So we have come a long way.  I would like to congratulate all of the people of Kosova on what has been achieved but there is a long way still to go before we secure our joint goal of a democratic, multiethnic society in Kosovo.  My visit underlines Britain's commitment to travelling with the people of Kosovoa until we reach that goal.  When we took the action we did 2 years ago to free Kosova we were told then by some people that we could not succeed.  We were successful then.  When people say to us now that it is too difficult to build a democratic, multi-ethnic society, I say to them that we can succeed if we all want to succeed in achieving that task.

I have been impressed by the conversations that I have had in the course of this afternoon with the leaders of all the political stands of opinion within Kosovo.  I met with a number of representatives of the Kosovo Albanian community.  I welcome the commitments they gave me.  I welcome the commitment they made working to make a success of free and fair elections later this year as a crucial step toward creating a democratic Kosova, one in which all ethnic communities can be represented fairly.  I welcomed also the commitment that they give me to their support for working for a Kosova within its existing boundaries and with respect to the existing borders of neighbors such as Macedonia.  I welcomed also the assurance that I was given by them to creating a multi ethnic Kosova in which every citizen can travel without fear and can live with hope and that they would work with KFOR in their vital task of providing security for all residents of Kosovo.  As well as the representatives of the Kosova Albanian Community, I met also with Rada Trajkovic who represents the Serb Community of the Interim Administrative Council.  I congratulated her on her courage for working with the international community to build that multi ethnic Kosova.  I would urge others within the Serb community, particularly those in Mitrovica, to follow her example and work with us in order to bring together the communities of Kosova and to work together to create the future of Kosovo which is the future for both of them. 

This morning before meeting the political leaders I visited the British troops in the countryside to the north of Pristina.  As always, I was immensely impressed by the professionalism of the British troops.  On this occasion I was also impressed by the popularity of the British troops with the local residents who area they policed.  But both I and those troops regret that 2 years after we came it still requires so much effort and energy to protect the Serb minority within Kosovo.  There is a new environment now in the former Yugoslavia.  I saw it for myself two weeks ago when I visited the new government in Belgrade.  When I was last in Pristina, Milosovic was in power.  Today I am happy to say that he is in prison.  There is a changed opportunity for us; an opportunity for us to create here in Kosovo and elsewhere in the region modern European societies.  But we can only build a modern European Society on the foundation of European values and on equal respect for all citizens irrespective of their ethnic identity.  That is why my closing message is that the time has arrived when we can put reprisals into history and when we must build a future on making sure we do establish a firm basis of reconciliation between different communities.

Questions:

Q: Your trip includes visits to Kosovo and Montenegro.  You are visiting two countries that want independence.  Why is the independence of these countries not acceptable for the European Union?

RC: The resolution which provides for the basis of the United Nations and the international presence is Kosovo is quite explicit that it is not a resolution providing for the independence of Kosovo but I do believe there are many ways we can insure, as we proposed at Rambouillet, that there is a self governing Kosovoa with control of its own affairs, with security and with safety.  That is an entirely legitimate aspiration of the Kosovar people and one that I believe we can find ways of meeting.  I would also say that in Belgrade there is a new government.  It is not the government of Milosovic.  It is overwhelming ly of younger people, many of whom spent the 10 years of Milosovic's rule in exile.  I think it is also in the interest of Kosovo that it too should have some form of dialogue with Belgrade because it is important that there are so many issues which the two places of Kosova and Serbia have in common, of economy, of trade, of energy, of transport, and issues which will require politicians speak to each other in the same way we speak to each other in Europe.

Q: in Montenegro….

RC: Yes, I go to Montenegro tomorrow and you can come with me and join me and then I will give you an answer.

Q: Kosovo is one of the most densely policed areas in the world, but all around there is evidence of the breaking of laws.  For example recently cars that have been stolen in Europe have been legitimized by the registration process of UNMIK. Outside the police stations you see counterfeit cd's being sold.  Now one assumes that the police are competent.  You can only think by seeing that that there is political direction not to upset local people and to allow a certain amount of the breaking of the laws and to nothing about it.  Is that a reasonable statement?

RC: No that is totally unreasonable, irresponsible and untrue.  There is no political direction not to enforce the law and indeed one of the high priorities of the international community at the present time is to try to ensure that we do e a functioning legal system, that we do have more lawyers working here from the international community as judges and prosecutors, and that we build a new prison.  So I can assure you there is no part of the international community which is in any way condoning a crime in Kosovo or anywhere else.

Q: What is the message that you will send tomorrow in Montenegro?

RC:  I think I have already been asked that question and I look forward very much to an exchange of views tomorrow with President Djukanovic, with his foreign minister and with also the Yugoslav Prime Minister who will also be in Montenegro at the same time as me.  But as a general rule in international diplomacy I have found it better to share my message first with those I am meeting that to tell it in advance to the television. 

Q: Can your trips today and tomorrow be seen as discouraging leaders on their attitudes toward independence for both regions?

RC:  I would rather leave Montenegro until I am in Montenegro and I don't think that it will assist the power of my message if I were to give them my message from somewhere other than Montenegro.  But can I just come back to the way that you posed this as one of discouragement.  I would really strongly want my visit to be seen as quite the reverse as a message of encouragement to leaders here, both Albanian and Serb, that we should work together to make a success of the election so that we have a democratic Kosovo, together we should work to promote reconciliation so that we have a multi-ethnic Kosovo and together we must halt the extremist violence which is threatening the stabilization of Kosovo. Now these are not messages of discouragement but messages of encouragement.  There is a big agenda for us to get on with and I think we should focus on that rather than where we might be 5 to 10 years from now.  Let's tackle the immediate, present.

Q: What is your agenda?  You didn't say anything relating to your agenda on independence.  What exactly is that agenda?

RC: My agenda is not independence and I thought I made that clear.  What I want to see in Kosovo is a democratic, multi-ethnic society, self governing, controlling its own affairs and with its own security and safety for all the people of Kosova.  I think I made that point both when I met the leaders and I think I made it several times in the course of this press conference.  Now the international community is ready to help achieve that and Britain is particularly committed to building those objectives.  We want to work as partners.  I heard commitments and assurances in the course of this afternoon which if carried out will give us partners to achieve those objectives.

Q: Earlier you mentioned Rambouillet.  In that accord it says that Kosovo will have a constitution and one of the articles in that document says that the will of Kosovars will be respected on the final solution.  Does that mean that you gave the Kosovor leaders that you will support them in their constitution for Kosovo?

RC:  No I do not think that the legal framework drawn up by this process of discussion between them needs to be a carbon copied of what we agreed to in Rambouillet.  The circumstances are different, there has been an evolution since then and any body that is created at the end of this year will itself evolve.  If I could just say as the British Foreign Secretary that Britain does not exactly have a document labled a constitution and on the whole we have managed to rub by quite happily without such a document and we can make our institutions work.  My message to those that I met today was let's not get hung up on the title of the document.  Let's get on with making the substance of the document a reality.  Let's get the elections, let's have a legitimate elected Kosova political leadership which will have the authority of the ballot box behind it and then we can address some of these questions about the future.  Thank you very much.