PRISTINA, March 24 (Hina) - The European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, and the European External Relations Commissioner, Chris Patten, most vehemently condemned last week's violence
in Kosovo during their visit to Pristina on Wednesday.
PRISTINA, March 24 (Hina) - The European Union's High Representative
for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, and the
European External Relations Commissioner, Chris Patten, most
vehemently condemned last week's violence in Kosovo during their visit
to Pristina on Wednesday.#L#
Speaking at a press conference, Solana said that the destruction of
homes, schools and monasteries was unacceptable to the international
community, that violence was not the way to enter Europe and that it
must be condemned most harshly.
This behaviour is impermissible and the EU will not allow it, Solana
said. Kosovo has to become a place where people will live together and
the EU will do everything to achieve that, he said, adding that if the
people of Kosovo wanted to be part of the European family they needed
to know this was the only way.
Solana went on to say that everything that was destroyed last week had
to be rebuilt, and that the Kosovo population should provide the
funds, not the international community.
The Kosovo population cannot expect others to provide the funds and
has to guarantee that other communities can continue living in Kosovo,
he said. This is an obligation ethnic Albanians have towards the
international community, their citizens and future generations, he
added.
Solana said that to arrive in Kosovo on the fifth anniversary of
NATO's air raids and the arrival of the international mission in the
province and see dead people and burnt homes and churches was
disappointing and horrifying.
Patten also strongly condemned last week's violence. He told ethnic
Albanians that the violence must stop at once.
(Hina) ha