Remarks With Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova

PRESIDENT RUGOVA: Honored guests, with special pleasure, I had the honor to meet with Undersecretary Mr. Grossman, a friend of Kosova, who has worked for Kosova for a long time, and I informed him on the development and progress that we have had in Kosova, on the security plan, and all fields of life, on our objectives, economic development, privatization we have started as well as the integration of minorities in Kosova, in Kosova’s society, and we also talked about the operationalization of the standards we should focus on, and the United States and the International Community will help us achieve and implement these standards as soon as possible. At the same time, I insist that the recognition of independence of Kosova would accelerate internal processes as well as the standards and would calm our region in this part of Europe and the world.

I also took into consideration Undersecretary Grossman’s proposals on the operationalization of the standards, on which all Kosova Institutions and the people of Kosova will be working on because it is for the benefit of Kosova. And I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the United States for all they have done before the war, during the war and now for the reconstruction of Kosova, and we expect strong support from the United States in the future, as we had until now. I would take this opportunity to greet President Bush and the State Department for all their help and we expect their help in the future too. Thank you Mr. Grossman. Welcome to my country.

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: Mr. President, first, thank you very much for the time that you have spent with me this afternoon. As President Rugova said, I had the chance to come here and report to him on what I was doing in the Balkans, and that is trying to emphasize the importance to the United States of the success of the Balkans and the investment that we have made here as the International Community over the past eight to ten years. That success is defined by democracy and success in the economy and also the movement of all the people of the Balkans to Euro-Atlantic institutions and to Euro Atlantic structures. I had the chance to report also to the President, as I did to all of you a few hours ago, that the proposal that the Contact Group has made, in close consultation with the Secretary General’s Special Representative, former Prime Minister Holkeri, about standards and then a review of those standards. I reported to the President that we supported the efforts of UNMIK. We supported the efforts of the SRSG Holkeri to define clear, specific and measurable standards, that we could then judge altogether in mid 2005, or, as I told the President, earlier if there was more progress. And I said to him that the idea of the Contact Group, if those standards were met, we would then be prepared to begin a process to discuss Kosovo’s final status. If that judgment is that the standards were not met, as I told the President, then we would choose another date. I thought we had a very positive session about that. As the President said, he reported to me on some of the progress that has been made here and I very much appreciated that report. And I said to him that the United States would continue to be a strong supporter of success in this area, and a strong supporter of the efforts of the International Community led by the United Nations, to have clear, definable and measurable standards that we can judge so that the people of Kosovo can have the capacity to live their own lives. Mr. President I thank you very much.