Albania hails end of supervised independence of Kosovo

TIRANA, Sep. 12 – Albania hailed the end of the supervised independence for Kosovo.
Western powers on the International Steering Group, which has overseen Kosovo since its 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, formally ended 13 years of various forms of international supervision on Monday.
Albanian president Bujar Nishani considered that end as the “crowning of the sublime efforts and work of the generations of the fighters, martyrs, men of knowledge, politicians and our allies of freedom.”
All the top officials and politicians in Tirana also reacted on the case.
The Kosovar leadership welcomed what it called a “historic turnaround” but also recognized the challenge of trying to integrate the ethnic Serbs in the north while Serbia dismissed the announcement as meaningless.
“The supervision of Kosovo is finished,” Dutch diplomat Pieter Feith, the highest international representative in Kosovo, told a press conference, speaking in Albanian. “The International Steering Group has decided to end the period of (Kosovo’s) supervised independence,” Feith said.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci called the decision a “historic turnaround” for Kosovo. “This is an international success for Kosovo which confirms that the international community respects Kosovo,” he said at the joint press conference with Feith.
The International Steering Group (ISG), made up of 23 European Union members, Turkey and the United States, had overseen Kosovo for the last four years.
But still on the ground Prishtina has no effective control over Serb-majority northern Kosovo which rejects the ethnic Albanian authorities. Thaci conceded Monday that there was a lot of work still to be done. “Many challenges await Kosovo, among them, the integration of the Serbs in the north,” he said.
US President Barack Obama hailed the ISG move as a “historic milestone” for Kosovo, over four years after its hotly contested declaration of independence.
“With the optimism, energy and determination characteristic of its people, Kosovo has made significant progress in solidifying the gains of independence and in building the institutions of a modern, multi-ethnic, inclusive and democratic state,” Obama said in a statement.
Kosovo and its two million majority ethnic-Albanian population had been under some form of international administration since a NATO bombing campaign forced then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s troops out of the Serbian province in 1999.
The end of so-called supervised independence will not affect the presence of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force in charge of security or European rule-of-law mission EULEX, which was created to boost the justice system.
Kosovo is among the poorest regions in Europe, with almost half of the population jobless and poor, according to international surveys.
Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by some 90 countries, including most EU nations, but is rejected by Belgrade, Russia and Kosovo’s own ethnic Serbs, who make up about six percent of the population, living mainly in the north.
Serbia נwhich has never accepted Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, 2008 נdismissed the sovereignty announcement as meaningless.