The UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has received a long-awaited "green light" to start reconfiguration, mission chief Lamberto Zannier said Thursday.
After meeting with Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu in the Kosovo capital of Pristina, Zannier told the press that conditions had been provided for the start of the 120-day reconfiguration of the UNMIK operation in Kosovo.
Zannier said that he saw the end of October as the deadline for ending the process.
During the process, the structures of the international administration in Kosovo would be scaled down, and its role changed in line with "realities on the ground, and in light of the role of the new actors who'll be operating there," said Zannier.
Kosovo, which is dominated by ethnic Albanians, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia with Western backing on Feb. 17,nine years after the UNMIK administration since 1999. It has since won recognition from 43 countries, including the United States and most EU countries.
However, Serbia and some 120,000 Kosovo Serbs rejected Kosovo's independence as illegal under international law.
Asked to comment on the announcements regarding the upcoming formation of a Serb parliament in northern Kosovo, Zannier said that he did not expect that would change the reality on the terrain.
Sejdiu said that the formation of such a parliament was essentially an illegal act unacceptable for Kosovo institutions.
Kosovo's Serbs have said that they would form their own parliament in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica on June 28 following the May 11 Serbian local elections as a countermeasure against the Kosovo constitution, which took effect on June 15, raising fears of further division between the majority Albanians and minority Serbs.
Zannier said that he would soon be visiting northern Kosovo where ethnic Serbs inhabit in large numbers.
Source:Xinhua
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