Bajram Rexhepi

Bajram Rexhepi, Kosovo's former prime minister and interior minister, has died in a hospital in Turkey following a stroke. He was 63.

Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said in a statement that Rexhepi, a surgeon by profession, passed away in the early hours on Aug. 21 following months of battling a grave illness. He was taken to Turkey after a stroke in April.

Bajram Rexhepi, the first elected Prime Minister of Kosovo following the 1999 war of independence, died on Monday at the age of 63 in a hospital in Turkey, where he had been receiving treatment for months following a stroke in April this year.

News of the death of Rexhepi was confirmed by his Kosovo Democratic Party, PDK.

Former Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi died early on Monday in Istanbul, Turkey, Pristina-based media have reported, according to RTS.

Rexhepi suffered a stroke several months ago. He underwent surgery in a Pristina hospital, and then fell into a coma.

The chair of the Kosovo parliament's Commission for Public Administration, Zenun Pajaziti, told BIRN that his commission had approved a draft document for a census to be held in northern Kosovo, which now has to be put on the parliamentary agenda.

The census in the four northern municipalities was planned for this autumn, the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Bajram Gecaj, added.

The Kosovo assembly has postponed a sitting on constitutional amendments that would allow for a special war crimes court for the former KLA to be formed.

The decision came at the request of Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), it was announced in Pristina on Friday.

Ibrahim Rexhepi, an economic expert, said the five-month political deadlock in Kosovo on forming a new government following the general elections had damaged the economy - and worse is to come. "The crisis will be more obvious in the first months of next year," he predicted.

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