Kosovo MPs Debate Thaci’s Presevo Unification Resolution

Kosovo MPs on Monday debated Hashim Thaci's draft resolution which proposed that the Albanian-majority municipalities of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac in the Presevo Valley area of southern Serbia should unite with Kosovo.

"Institutions of the Republic of Kosovo, through this resolution, are obliged to respect the political will of the Albanians in the Valley of Presheva [Presevo] for unification with Kosovo, expressed in the referendum of 1992 and with the war of the Liberation Army for Presheva, Medvegja and Bujanovc," the draft resolution said.

"The requests of the Albanians of the Valley of Presheva are requests that help the long-term stability of the region and contribute to the establishment of long-term peace in the region," it added.

In a local referendum in the Presevo Valley in 1992, a majority voted for territorial autonomy and the right to join Kosovo. The vote wasn't recognised as valid by Belgrade or the international community.

The Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac was an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force that sought to unite southern Serbia with Kosovo in the late 1990s but disarmed in 2001 following an internationally-brokered peace deal.

Zoran Stankovic, the head of the Serbian government body for Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja, dismissed Thaci's initiative.

"I have said a million times that Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja are part of Serbia and that it will stay like this," Stankovic said on Monday, Tanjug news agency reported.

Thaci's resolution was proposed during an extraordinary session held to discuss the situation in the three Serbian municipalities.

MPs agreed that the situation for the inhabitants of the Presevo Valley was worsening, and that Kosovo institutions had to...