Prishtina, 19 October 2009
Today the Government Commission on Missing Persons held a regular meeting under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Manaj. EULEX chief Yves de Kermabon also participated in the meeting.
Deputy Prime Minister Manaj discussed speeding up the process of clarifying the fate of over 1,900 missing persons of the Kosovo war during the meeting; in which EULEX representative de Kermabon, a representative of the International Commission on Missing Persons, Ms. Ketrin Honberger, and an international representative of the Red Cross, Mr. Bert Schneider, also took part. “The dynamic of this process is not achieving the level of results which are necessary and which were desired, and this is a concern for the Kosovo Government and the institutions of Kosovo,” said Mr. Manaj.
Furthermore, Mr. Manaj said, “Our invitation to this meeting had only one motive, and that was to reanimate, revive and strengthen our joint efforts to speed up this process and move forward.”
“We are all aware of the difficulties of this process – which have been and remain – very serious, evident and sensitive. These difficulties, in clarifying the fate of a greater number of the remaining missing persons, are very apparent today,” stated the Deputy Prime Minister, adding, “400 mortal remains have been in Prishtina morgue for some years now. This requires an urgent response from experts.”
During today’s meeting, various decisions were taken, including; a decision for regular meetings to be held every month, by all partners involved in this process. There will also soon be a document which will define the orientation of the work towards clarifying the fate of missing persons.
EULEX will engage in receiving as much information as possible from the Serb side. It was also concluded that there is no need to create new mechanisms, rather to strengthen existing mechanisms instead.
The chief of the EULEX Justice Component, Alberto Perduca, said that today’s meeting was successful. “We all share concern for the missing persons. This is a priority issue for Kosovo and for EULEX,” said Mr. Perduca, promising full cooperation on this issue.
Last modified: July 31, 2022