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STORY: UN / KOSOVO
TRT: 3.31
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS
DATELINE: 06 JULY 2010, NEW YORK CITY
RECENT 2010, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
06 JULY 2010, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council meeting
3. Cutaway, delegates
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Boris Tadic, President, Serbia & Montenegro:
“This was done deliberately in order to increase inter-ethnic tensions and sabotage the quest for comprehensive peace. It was yet another destructive consequence of a sinister plan –sponsored in part by the so-called international Civilian Office headed by Peter Faith- to unilaterally impose an illegal and unwanted regime in that part of the province.”
5. Cutaway, delegates
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Boris Tadic, President, Serbia & Montenegro:
“We call on UNMIK to make use of its reserved powers under resolution 1244 (1999) and restore the province’s legitimate legal framework discarded by the secessionists. We call on the EU to compel EULEX to exercise its executive authority and swiftly bring to justice the perpetrators of all crimes against Kosovo Serbs the most vulnerable local community in Europe today.”
7. Cutaway, delegates
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Lamberto Zannier, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, United Nations:
“I would therefore like to reiterate the Secretary-General’s call to all sides to commit to dialogue as a necessary process to address the challenges faced in northern Kosovo.”
9. Cutaway, delegates
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Skender Hyseni, Kosovo:
“Hearing President Tadic today intervention one can conclude that yes that office does represent some kind of threat, but a threat not to honest Kosovar citizens, a threat to criminals in the north, to hardliners who organized the violent protest in Mitriovica.”
11. Cutaway, delegates
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Ambassador Philip Parham, Deputy Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom:
“Claims by President Tadic that the government of Kosovo should bear responsibility for Friday’s event, because of its decisions to open the community services centre or that the international civilian representative should do so because he supported that decision are plainly unjustified. This was a criminal act and the individuals responsible for it must be held to account.”
13. Cutaway, delegates
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation:
“The incident in Northern Mitrovica has clearly shown that counter to the Security Council’s mandate within the framework of reconfiguration of UNMIK the EU law and order mission is increasingly departing from the principle of status of neutrality which is undermining the standing of this international presence. We again call upon EULEX to comply with the principles of Security Council resolution 1244 to act in a balanced way, mindful of the interests of both sides, under the central coordinating role of UNMIK. We call upon Brussels to carefully monitor this and also to correct the actions of their personal representative Mr. Faith.”
15. Cutaway, delegates
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Ambassador Alejandro Daniel Wolff, Deputy Permanent U.S. Representative:
“We frankly do not see that an isolated criminal act such as the one on July 2 warrants an emergency Security Council meeting.”
17. Wide shot, Tadic stands up and leaves the Security Council as Hyseni is talking to the delegates before closing the meeting
The United Nations (UN) Security Council today (6 July) held an emergency special meeting on the situation in northern Kosovo at the request of Serbian President Boris Tadic due to recent incidents of violence in the area.
Tadić told delegates at the meeting that last Friday’s (2 July) violent incidents in northern Mitrovica were a “deliberate” attempt to increase inter-ethnic tensions and “sabotage the quest for a comprehensive sinister plan.”
Tadic called on the UN Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) to make use of its reserved powers and restore the “province’s legitimate legal framework discarded by the secessionists.”
He also called on the European Union (EU) to compel its Rule of Law mission in the province (EULEX) to exercise its executive authority and “swiftly bring to justice the perpetrators of all crimes against Kosovo Serbs.”
The UN’s head of mission in Kosovo, Lamberto Zannier, reiterated the Secretary-General’s call to all sides in the conflict to commit to dialogue in order to address “the challenges faced in northern Kosovo.”
A representative of Kosovo present at the meeting, Skender Hyseni told the Council members that President Tadic’s statement posed “a threat not to honest Kosovar citizens, a threat to criminals in the north, to hardliners who organized the violent protest in Mitriovica.”
The United Kingdom’s Ambassador Philip Parham stressed that President Tadic’s claims that the “government of Kosovo” should bear responsibility for last Friday’s event because of its decision to open a community service centre was “plainly unjustified.”
Parham added that that was a “criminal act and the individuals responsible for it must be held to account.”
Meanwhile Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin noted that the incident in northern Mitrovica had “clearly shown” that EULEX was “increasingly departing from the principle of status of neutrality” which he added was “undermining the standing of this international presence.”
He called on the EU Rule of Law mission to “comply with the principles of Security Council resolution 1244” and to act in a balanced way “mindful of the interests of both sides, under the central coordinating role of UNMIK.”
United States Ambassador Alejandro Daniel Wolff questioned if such an “isolated” criminal act warranted an emergency Security Council meeting.
Last Friday (2 July) an explosion killed one person and injured 10 in the Serb part of the divided town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. According to police reports the explosion occurred meters away from some 600 Kosovo-Serbs protesting against the opening of a Community Centre office in that region.
