2001 WAS A YEAR OF KOSOVO'S PROGRESS - RUGOVA

PRISTINA, Dec 29 (Hina) - President of the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, the largest Kosovo Albanian party, and the only candidate for Kosovo's president, Ibrahim Rugova, in his New Year's message told Kosovo citizens 2001 was a year of Kosovo's progress made in all aspects of life, and the third year of creating freedom in cooperation with NATO, KFOR, UNMIK and OSCE. This year was a historic one for Kosovo primarily due to the first general elections in a free Kosovo, it was a year of consolidation of local authorities and the beginning of the formation of the central Kosovo authority whose priorities further continue to be overall political and democratic stabilisation of Kosovo, primarily faster economic development, Rugova said in the message. We will intensively work on achieving the formal recognition of Kosovo's independence with our friends, the United States and the European Union, Rugova said, and concluded that Kosovo was in fact now independent and its formal recognition and association with NATO and the European Union is to be sought. He stressed special attention in the building of the democratic and tolerant Kosovo society will be paid to the protection and intergation of ethnic groups. Rugova greeted and thanked members of international forces in Kosovo, who night and day looked after Kosovo's safety and its defence, as well as UNMIK, the OSCE mission and humanitarian and non-governmental international organisations. (hina) np