Pristina, June 12, 2023
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, participated today in the joint state reception in honor of Liberation Day, on the occasion of its 24th anniversary, where the heads of state were present, along with leaders of local and international institutions, among them Talat Xhaferi, Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia, and various diplomatic representatives.
He described this day as an important date in the history of the people of Kosovo that came after continuous efforts and the struggle for liberation, self-determination and independence, and said that liberation came after many pains, losses and sufferings of the people of Kosovo.
“After the sacrifice of Jasharaj, the war of the Kosovo Liberation Army. It came after many massacres and a genocide that was stopped by the largest military alliance of the democratic world and the history of mankind – NATO”, he declared.
Expressing a special thanks for the role of NATO, the Prime Minister emphasized that the history of the Albanian people is full of heroes and heroines.
“Under every occupation and oppression, we had uprisings for liberation and independence. Because we are a free people. We are Illyrian by roots and free by being”, were the words of the prime minister.
Prime Minister Kurti’s complete speech:
Your Excellency Vjosa Osmani Sadriu, President of the Republic of Kosovo,
Your Excellency Fatmir Sejdiu, former president of the Republic of Kosovo,
Your Excellency Atifete Jahjaga, former president of the Republic of Kosovo,
Your Excellency, Glauk Konjufca, Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo,
Your Excellency, Talat Xhaferi, Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia,
Honorable Bashkim Jashari, Lieutenant General of the Kosovo Security Force,
Honorable Bekim Jashari, representative of the Jashari family,
Dear Ms. Gresa Caka Nimani, president of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo,
The honorable Mr. Mehmet Kraja, Chairman of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo,
Dear Mayor of the Municipality of Pristina, Përparim Rama,
Honorable Commander of KFOR, Major General Angelo Ristuccia,
Excellences ambassadors and other diplomats accredited in our country,
Dear participants,
Ladies and gentleman,
Today we mark the 24th anniversary of the liberation of Kosovo. An important date in the history of the people of Kosovo that came after continuous efforts and the struggle for liberation, self-determination and independence.
The disintegration of Yugoslavia began in Kosovo and brought the end of the occupation of Serbia. Student demonstrations, the miners’ strike turned into a popular movement. This movement was led by intellectuals, writers, dissidents and former political prisoners who became representatives of the liberation war.
Liberation came after many pains, losses and sufferings of the people of Kosovo; after the sacrifice of Jasharaj in the war of the Kosovo Liberation Army. It came after many massacres and a genocide that was stopped by the largest military alliance of the democratic world and the history of mankind – NATO.
The history of the Albanian people is full of heroes and heroines. Under every occupation and oppression, we had uprisings for liberation and independence. Because we are a free people. We are Illyrian by roots and free by being. We love freedom very much. We want it for others, not only for ourselves, because as the American President Abraham Lincoln tells us: those who deny freedom to others do not deserve it for themselves. Therefore we have not conquered and enslaved others, but we have helped others to liberate themselves.
Indeed, we try to learn history with the aim of not repeating it, but apparently, history takes us to the exam every three, four or five decades, to test itself if it can be repeated. The wars in the former Yugoslavia, fueled and fueled by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia and his dark circle, caused genocide and crimes against humanity in post-World War II Europe. Just as the freedom-loving peoples at that time had their resistance forces, we Albanians had the Kosovo Liberation Army. Just as the troops of the British, American, Canadian, Norwegian and other allied armies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, so their successors in arms, the British, American, Canadian, Norwegian and other military troops, landed in Kosovo on June 11 and 12, 1999.
The distance in time, month by month, from June to June, was exactly 55 years. And just as the allied troops in Normandy were commanded by a British general Bernard Low Montgomery and an American supreme general Dwight Eisenhower, the allied troops in Kosovo were commanded by a British three-star general Michael Jackson and an American four-star general Wesley Clark. Just as June 6 is D Day for the freedom of Europe, June 12 is D Day for the freedom of Kosovo!
The 78-day air campaign of NATO bombings over Yugoslavia and the ground intervention of KFOR troops in Kosovo are the heirs of that Western world with faith in freedom and democratic values, which had ended the Second World War. She could not tolerate the repeated scenes of murders of men, women and children in Kosovo just because they were Albanians, as well as their expulsion from trains and long columns in the context of the ethnic cleansing that Serbia was carrying out in our country.
That is, the Western World, could not and should not tolerate the massacres, burnings and massive destruction in the service of genocide and culturocide that the Serbian military and police forces were carrying out against the Albanians. By intervening militarily in Kosovo, Western countries respected their history and were faithful to their fundamental values to fight for freedom, to protect human rights and to preserve humanity in and for itself.
So today from here in Pristina, as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, with the ambassadors of the allied countries of NATO in front of me, allow me to say thank you in the name of the Government and in the name of our people! Thank you to all the countries that in 1999 were involved in the military operations for the liberation of Kosovo from violence and repression, from genocide and from the ethnic cleansing that Serbia had practiced on our people for decades.
Thank you for joining us in our long struggle for freedom. Thank you for joining our journey for freedom, that path reddened by the blood of martyrs and martyrs and articulated with the KLA, whose righteous struggle cannot be tarnished or disfigured, because it has only one face, the face of freedom.
Dear attendees,
The writer, economist and patriot, Mitrush Kuteli, wrote that as the son of a small people, I have always had a great hatred against the black idea, peoples over peoples or big people over small people but peoples alongside peoples. Peoples alongside free and equal peoples and in peace, this is what we want for ourselves, this is what we want for others, for this we have worked and fought every time, and we commit ourselves and work even today, every day.
Thank you!
Last modified: June 13, 2023