Albanians to act as a nation and not as two states in defence of KLA, says Cakaj

Gazeta Express

13/07/2020 23:14

Albania’s acting minister of Foreign Affairs and EU Integrations, Gent Cakaj, said Tirana is obliged to be with Kosovo now that its political leaders and former representatives of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) are facing war crime allegations.

“When the KLA values are at stake we should react as a nation rather than as two countries. This is to defend the values of the KLA, to cleanse their name. Now we are seeing that Kosovo is solely being kept responsible. After 20 years, Serbia is no longer seen as an aggressor. And this produces political consequences. If the indictment is filed the Kosovo Specialist Chambers will not only remove some political representatives in Kosovo, but would leave a vacuum,” he said.

Albania’s acting FM, who is from Kosovo, says the publication of the indictment against Kosovo president Hashim Thaci and PDK leader Kadri Veseli was politically motivated considering the timing it was published. The Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) published on 24 June a press release saying that its prosecutors have filed an indictment against Thaci and Veseli which is yet to be confirmed by a pre-trial judge. The same day Thaci was on his way to Washington to attend a meeting with Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic, mediated by the US special envoy on dialogue Richard Grenell.

“We have sound reasons to believe that this was politically motivated for two reasons: First, the timing. the press release was published two days ahead of the White House meeting; and second, according to the statement Thaci and Veseli allegedly have put their personal interests ahead of the victims and were trying to undermine Court’s work. This might be only a language used in an internal political brawl. But a court which is not the third party has no right to politically interfere with such statements,” Cakaj said. /GazetaExpress/