United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT

Press Briefing Notes, 27 May 2003

UNMIK Spokesperson Izabella Karlowicz,
KFOR Spokesperson Gary Bannister-Green
UNMIK Police Spokesperson Derek Chappell
OSCE Spokesperson Edita Buçaj
EU Spokeswoman Monique De Groot

UNMIK Spokesperson Izabella Karlowicz

Good morning everybody. The Transfer Council will meet tomorrow on May 28th. The agenda of the meeting is in the process of being finalized so I do not have exact details to give you. All I can say at the moment is that theThree Working Groups have completed their reports on competencies to be transferred and will present their reports to the Transfer Council.

There were several important meetings and conferences last week, as you know – the Contact Group meeting, as well as the NAC meeting and Ohrid.

As you know the Ohrid was dedicated to border security issues and fight against OC, which was culminated by approval of the “Common Platform”, an agreement on Temporary Local Border Crossing Points was also reached between DSRSG for Police and Justice Jean Christian Cadyandthe State Counselor for Consular Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Skopje, Ambassador Ljupco Arsovski.

The Protocol, which will finally resolve the difficult issue of access of people to their land, covered the practical aspects of temporary local border crossing points to be opened at the Kosovo sections of the border with FYROM in the areas of Debelde-Tanushevci (Viti/Vitina municipality) and Restelica-Strezimir (Dragas municipality).

It was agreed that these temporary local border crossing points will be opened only for people in villages in the vicinity of the crossing points, in order to facilitate economic activities or, like in the Debelde-Tanushevci area, the border crossing point will provide access for Kosovo farmers to their fields and pastures. For the Restelica-Strezimir area, the new border crossing point will make it easier for Gorani residents living in Kosovo to access villages on the other side of the border. This agreement will become operational at the beginning of July this year.

The meeting with Civil Protection Development Group is currently taking place. There will be a press release with more details, which will follow this meeting.

This coming Thursday there will be the International Peacekeepers Day. This day intends to pay tribute “to all the men and women who served and continue to serve in UN peacekeeping operations, as well as to honour the memory of those who lost their lives in the cause of peace”.

On the occasion of this year’s International Day of UN Peacekeepers, UNMIK and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations of UN in New York, have organized a day of events to explain what the day is about and to highlight the varied work of UN peacekeepers.

As you can see on the example of Kosovo that peacekeeping operations nowadays are not limited to military monitoring, but they now include police, judges and prosecutors, civil administrators, political and human rights experts, economists and many more.

There will be a special campaign which aims at bringing closer to everybody in Kosovo the many faces of those who work at UNMIK, there will generally be a wide range of events and activities all over Kosovo.

Most of the activities will be the in front of the Sports and Youth Centre in Pristina, where such events as a chess tournament between the Chief of the Department of Justice Paul Coffey and Kosovo’s only Chess Grand maestro Bedri Sadiku will take place, there will also be a basketball game between Former Kosovo professionals and UNMIK staff, a concert of classical music, all day exhibits and a seminar about peacekeeping led by Jean Krasno, the Executive Director of the Academic Council on the United Nations System headquartered at Yale university. We will send you a press release with all the details soon. Everybody is welcome.

KFOR Spokesperson Gary Bannister-Green

COMKFOR, Lieutenant General Fabio Mini, has expressed his sorrow and sends his condolences to the families of our Spanish comrades and Ukrainian crew who tragically died returning from peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan. KFOR in commemorating International Peacekeeper Day on Thursday 29 May will be holding a remembrance service to honour peace keepers who made the ultimate sacrifice, laying down their lives in the pursuit of peace.

Last week COMKFOR, briefed the North Atlantic Council in Brussels and explained the fundamental aspects of KFOR’s mission, the new challenges we face, the transformation of our structure and our new operational methods. He said that there has been much progress made to date, but there was still some way to go, particularly in the area minority returns and freedom of movement. KFOR will continue to work with UNMIK and local population to try to bring further improvements. On security, COMKFOR emphasized that the threat comes from within Kosovo itself, with illegal armed groups, terrorist activity, extremists and organized crime. KFOR’s structure was being transformed with the rationalization of its forces to provide a greater proportion of ‘maneuver’ forces, which are flexible and mobile units, and reducing the support forces. This is combined with cross boundary operations and the increased use of surveillance and intelligence assets.
Last week also saw the visit to Kosovo of the International Military Committee (IMC), the highest political-military body within NATO. The IMC had a productive visit and recognized the valuable role that KFOR is performing. Such high level visits and meeting emphasize NATO’s interest in Kosovo and their continued commitment to security and development of the region.
KFOR operations in conjunction with UNMIKP and KPS, over the past week have resulted in the confiscation of the following illegal weapons and ammunition:
· 14 Rifles
· 2 Anti tank weapons
· 5 Grenades/Mines
· 528 Rounds of ammunition
KFOR commitment to the security of Kosovo remains as strong as ever and will continue work with our partners in UNMIKP and KPS to that end.

Police Spokesperson Derek Chappell

On 26-05-03 in Pristina Region, a 50 year-old man was sitting inside a restaurant when two other men entered the room. The suspects approached the victim, spoke briefly with him, and then killed him with a pistol. A second victim was wounded during the incident and transported to hospital for treatment. Police have arrested one of the suspects. The motive is believed to involve a personal dispute.

On 24-05-03 in Gnjilane Region, police responded to a complaint from a citizen that a group of men were outside his house, threatening him. The four suspects were arrested when a search of their vehicle discovered hand grenades and ammunition.

On 20-05-03 in Prizren Region, police arrested four men after they were involved in a shooting incident during a dispute over the dumping of garbage. Two children, ages 6 and 4, were wounded by the gunfire. Police also seized an AK-47 rifle during the investigation.

On 20-05-03 in Gnjilane Region, a man was arrested after he assaulted a police officer with a knife, stabbing the officer in the chest. The officer was transported to hospital and admitted in stable condition. The suspect was later transferred to a facility for the mentally ill.

EU Spokeswoman Monique De Groot

In close cooperation with Pillar IV and funded by The British Office, The Forum, one of the most active NGOs in Kosovo dealing with civil society launched this week projects a Customs Monitoring Project.

By involving UNMIK structures, Kosovan governing institutions, the UNMIK Customs Service, local media and other local and regional civil society actors, this project seeks to create a broad-based coalition to publicly combat criminality, corruption and trafficking. The project is supported by a an awareness raising information campaign which aims at increasing trust in UNMIK Customs as a democratic institution of law and order and a major revenue-collector for the Kosovo budget.

The monitors have now been recruited and will be trained this week for their task to monitor UNMIK Customs officials at border crossings. Thursday, at the end of the training, The Forum will organise a press briefing in the Grand Hotel which will start at 11:45 where they will provide more details on the project and the specific task of the monitors.

Questions:

Q: A question for Derek regarding yesterday’s arrest for terrorism. Is the man who was arrested in any way connected with the bridge attack or is he a member of AKSh?

DC: At the request of the investigators I cannot give more details then we gave on the press release, I hope you will understand why we cannot give any more details. But I cannot identify the incident.

Q: Have there been any other terrorist incidents in 2003 apart from the bridge bombing? Because as far that I can remember there was no other incident reported as terrorists attack?

DC: It very much depends on the information you are acting on. We have information that might not be public, the actions that have happened or motives behind them, they might well be criminal incidents that have occurred. We may then have intelligence based on information that leads us to believe that they were motivated by terrorist intensions and they were not just purely criminal, I think that this is something that will come out later as these investigations develop.

Q: And the second question for UNMIK if Paul Coffey looses with the Kosovar champion, does that mean that Kosovars are ready to take on European Championship? I mean to be beaten by a Kosovar that must be a good sign?

IzaK: Very good question, let’s wait with the answer for the match.

Q: Has KTA decided on the BBK contract or are you scraping the contract completely? And have you heard about the accusations of the assets stripping between BBK deal and PTK?

MG: The last point, I mean if there is not a deal between them they cant be any thing like assets stripping involved. I am aware of the issue, the issue of course is BBCom has presented a business plan to PTK, and as far as KTA Pillar IV concerned, is that any one basically is allowed to make a business proposal but not that it would come to a deal, that totally depends of what kind of proposal where the proper procedure are being followed, whether the KTA are doing the over side of the public and owned enterprises, if there are BOI involved, apart of the contract, and if legally things are seems to be alright. As far as this issue, BBCom is concerned, I know that they are looking into the matter and no contract has been signed at all, between the two parties.

Q: Andy Bearpark stated in the local papers that he doesn’t see any conflict of interest with the fact that Roger Reynolds is now on the board of the company, which was created as a joint company by PTK while he was in KTA. I mean don’t you think that this sets a bad example, if not a legal problem for you? I mean do you think that it is right if he becomes the head of the BBCom?

MG: I can only repeat what Mr. Bearpark said. As far as I am concerned what he knows doesn’t seem to represent a conflict of interests. However, if allegations and evidence turn up that may lead to believe differently from how we see it, than of course actions will be taken, but so far there are no reasons to believe that there is a conflict of interest. And I think it is also important to understand that certain people working for the UN Mission and for the EU, are of the type who move from one mission to another and for certain aspects of our work we require a specific economic expertise that you can only have if you have been working or have been trained in a certain field. In this case it is telecommunication, which is of course is not such an enormous area. So if someone decides to leave one post he is of course free to move on to another position