[NYC-L] State Dept on Kosova

[Ina Hoxha Zaloshnja]

Hi Jeton,
I was wondering where in the city do you  live?  there is a new initiative of albanians (from all over the balkans) here in the city called albanian professional network.  If you have some time on friday at 7:00 pm, naac is letting us use its office where we are meeting to talk about some future projects.  
my number is 571-228-3013 if you want to give me a call and discuss it futher.
 
sorry for this quickly written email.  
Jeton Ademaj <jeton at hotmail.com> wrote:
=== NYC-L: New York City Discussion Forum ===

hey people, there's alot here:

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Nicholas Burns will announce a 
shift in US policy meant to re-assess efforts to resolve the final status of 
Bosnia and Kosova.
< 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/16/AR2005051601440.html 
> This is an excerpt regarding Kosova from yesterday's US State Department 
briefing...it was the first item of the briefing.

The Q&A that follows below includes an exchange with an unnamed reporter who 
accuses the USA of backing "Hitler's policy in the Balkans", claiming that 
Kosova gained an Albanian majority because of der Fuhrer. I think we need to 
remind everyone public and private of Kosova's Albanian history and of the 
expulsion and/or murder of hundreds of thousands of Kosovars under Dr. Vasya 
Cubrilovic's 1938 Expulsion plan that was first unveiled before the Serbian 
Acadamy of Arts and Sciences, because the latest Belgrade strategy is to 
link us with (and de-link themselves from!) the Nazis. After you read the 
State Dept. excerpt, checkout this link from a Serbian site that outlines 
their general strategy. It includes some twisted logic, twisted verbiage and 
carefully omits Dr. Cubrilovic and any other context at all... < 
http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/060.shtml >

here's the excerpt:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2005
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

12:50 p.m. EDT

MR. BOUCHER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We'll get out a
statement later today, just to tell you that Deputy Secretary of State
Robert Zoellick will be attending the World Economic Forum later this week
in Jordan. He'll be our representative for that meeting there and we'll
get out a little more details on what he's going to do there, including
the address that he will make.

And that's just worthy of note, but glad to take your questions.

QUESTION: Yes. Please tell us a little bit about evolving Kosovo
strategy. I know Mr. Burns will testify tomorrow, but if you can give us
a little bit of a preview.

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, I think, "evolving Kosovo strategy" is a good way to
put it, frankly. The Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas
Burns will discuss the current situation in Kosovo and our vision for
progress and peace there in testimony before the House International 
Relations
Committee on May 18th. And then he will give a speech on the Balkans
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on May 19th.

On these -- in these two speeches or statements, he will elaborate on
our strategy for resolving Kosovo's future status. That has to be done
consistent with the goals of promoting regional stability and
protecting the rights of all of Kosovo's citizens, especially its 
minorities.
This is a subject that we have discussed a lot with our friends and allies.
As I think, some of you may remember about a month ago at the NATO
meetings in Lithuania, Kosovo was a subject of discussion for the Secretary,
with NATO Secretary General and with many of the members of NATO that she
met there, as well as in the larger North Atlantic Council meetings. So
this is something that we and our allies have been talking about how to move
forward in Kosovo to have stability and peace there within a larger
region.

We think we're now entering a new stage in our policy towards the
Balkans, one that will accelerate the region's integration into
Euro-Atlantic institutions. Burns and other U.S. officials have been
in close contact with our European partners, largely through the contact
group, which gets together periodically and I think had a meeting last
month as well. And also in touch with the United Nations, which plays
a very important and prominent role in Kosovo in terms of achieving
progress on the ground and also moving the vision forward.

This summer, the United Nations will review Kosovo's progress on
achieving standards for democracy and multi-ethnicity. If that review
is positive, the international community will launch a diplomatic process
to determine Kosovo's future status. Since that process at this point has
yet to get under way, it would be inappropriate for us to announce
anything about possible outcomes.

QUESTION: But you would have to acknowledge, wouldn't you, that the
wheels are turning toward Kosovo independence and the U.S., which often
speaks in favor of territorial integrity all over the world -- there
are some stunning exceptions, of course -- but you do, aren't you -- isn't
the U.S. intentionally setting in motion or helping to set in motion
independence of Kosovo?

MR. BOUCHER: I wouldn't put it that way. I would -- and you'll see,
I think, when Ambassador Burns speaks in more detail about this, there
has been an evolving discussion about this, about standards and status, the
two sides of the equation of what needs to be achieved with Kosovo.
And I think there's an increasing feeling among many that we need to define
these things in order to achieve -- we need to define them better in
order to achieve a number of other goals and purposes. And so that is what
we're moving to do. We're moving to set in motion a process that can
resolve Kosovo's future status, but at this point we're not expressing
an opinion on how that should come out.

Sir.

QUESTION: The Washington Post is talking about a plan. May we know
some aspect of this plan? What is it about?

MR. BOUCHER: The particular steps involved in moving forward and
kind of some of the more in-depth understanding about how we would like to
move forward will be conveyed and announced by Ambassador Burns in his
testimony, in his speech. The general outlines of what we're trying to
do, I think, are known, that we are working with the Contact Group and
the UN, looking forward to a review of how standards have been met this
summer and, if that review is positive, then move on to a process that can
decide -- resolve the issue of status. That is what we're moving forward on
now. We think we've reached a stage of moving forward in that fashion,
but I'll leave it to Under Secretary Burns to define in more detail how
we think we can move forward.

QUESTION: Under Secretary Nicholas Burns has been a key player in
engineering the administration's renewed in Kosovo due to his
experience, as he says, with the American Embassy to Greece and NATO. How 
this
experience has an impact on him about the new process which is going
mathematically, Mr. Boucher, to destabilize the western Balkans with
Albanians having the upper hand and the full support of the U.S., Great
Britain and NATO?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, you're making presumptions about outcomes.
You're making presumptions about problems with the outcome. I think it's
important to remember we are all looking for a peaceful region in the
Balkans that can be integrated into Europe more broadly, that can be
part of a peaceful continent. And we are looking to achieve both standards
and status in order to sort of solidify that progress and solidify the
progress that is being made in the region by many countries in moving
towards Euro-Atlantic institutions. So I think the experience that
Under Secretary Burns has at NATO and in Greece means that he does 
understand
the region, he does understand how to work with people and does
understand how it can -- how we can work with this region so that it fits 
well
into Euro-Atlantic structures and institutions.

QUESTION: Mr. Richard Holbrooke, a close friend to Nicholas Burns,
stated in Washington Post, "No way U.S. troops to leave Kosovo." I'm
quoting. He predicted that Kosovo will become independent, there is no
way about that, there is no question about that, and Montenegro will
separate from Serbia. Any comment on this multiple division of the
Balkans in the early stage by the U.S. policy? What exactly you are
trying to do in that area?

MR. BOUCHER: We're not making predictions. We're setting up a
process where the outcomes can be decided in a way that stabilizes the 
region,
that helps the region as a whole find its destiny in Europe and
Euro-Atlantic institutions.

QUESTION: Mr. Boucher, to be honest with you, and I hate to make
comparisons, my only weapon is, as I've told you many times in this
room, history. And allow me to ask how the two gentlemen, Nicholas Burns 
and
Richard Holbrooke, and besides with them, the State Department itself,
ignore totally the fact that Kosovo, the so-called sarcoma-kaposis, was
created by Adolf Hitler, transferred Albanians from the mainland to
fight the Serbs in order to control southeast of Europe seeking an exodus 
via
the port of Thessaloniki to the Aegean Sea.

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think either -- first of all, Nicholas Burns
and Richard Holbrooke are two different people so I wouldn't lump them
together in terms of their views. Second of all, I don't think either
one ignores history. I will speak for Under Secretary Burns, since he
works for us, and the point here is to overcome that history, is to have a
future that's different from the past, and not to -- not to repeat
mistakes of the past but rather to move forward where this region can
find peace and stability within our Euro-Atlantic framework that makes them
part of the whole and not separate chunks to create problems.

QUESTION: But since the end of the Second World War, America was
trying to reverse whatever Hitler did, with only exception of Kosovo. Why?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think I would characterize U.S. policy as that
way.

QUESTION: You've referred (inaudible.)

QUESTION: No, no, no --

QUESTION: You have several times. How would you describe the
situation now and does it require some wrenching change?

MR. BOUCHER: We have had --

QUESTION: I mean, things are fairly quiet.

MR. BOUCHER: Fairly quiet, compared to what? I mean, we've seen
violence this year. We have seen uncertainty this year. Compared to
the war, yes. But I don't think we'd characterize the situation as
stabilized. I don't think we would say that Serbs are finding a future
in Kosovo or are able to return to their homes. I don't think we would
say that the economic future of Kosovo is on track. There's a lot of
things that need to be done there and a lot of things that as we achieve the
standards can be aided by proceeding forward to resolve the status
issues as well.

QUESTION: I imagine a process creates some uncertainty in a nervous
area -- this process that you say, you know, the end of which you're
not predicting and nobody's predicting. But don't you think that this will
trigger all sorts of population shifts and all sorts of -- as we've
seen in the Balkans for so many, you know, what, through the last three
administrations, you're rattling the cage. Why are you doing that?

MR. BOUCHER: No. I just don't accept that. The situation is not a
stable one or a good one now. We and the UN and others have been
working to try to create a more stable situation through the achievement of
what are called standards of democracy, of good governance, of openness, of
welcoming to Serbs and others to move back to their homes. But that
process can only go so far without defining the status of people who
are involved in that situation want to know, in the end, what they're going
to be living in or what they're going to be a part of. And we think it's
--
as we achieve these standards, it's time to start taking up the issues
of status as well. We'll see what the review produces this summer and
whether that review produces a decision to go forward on some of these
status questions as well.

QUESTION: Is it your hope that the summer review does give a
positive report so that you can start final status?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, we would hope that the standards -- the standards
of democracy and multiethnic -- multi-ethnicity for Kosovo would be
achieved as soon as possible. So -- and if that is achieved, then the 
outcome
of the review would be positive. So I think the emphasis is on achieving
democracy and good governance and multi-ethnicity for Kosovo. If that
is done as we want it to be done, as we all are working to have it -- to
see it done, then the outcome could be positive in terms of moving on to
another stage.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Switch the topic? Luis Posada Carriles -- I'm trying --




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