"UN mission ready to support Kosovo organ probe"

1 February 2011 | 12:30 | Source: Tanjug

NEW YORK -- UNMIK is ready to fully support a probe into the Kosovo organ trafficking, the latest report of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says, according to reports. Ban Ki-moon (Beta/AP, file) It also expresses the expectation that progress will soon be made towards opening the Belgrade-Priština dialogue which has not yet begun due to the toppling of the Kosovo government. "The release of a report by Special Rapporteur Dick Marty on 'Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo', and the subsequent unanimous adoption on December 16 by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the CoE's Parliamentary Assembly of a resolution on the report provoked sharply divergent reactions and a wave of frustration among politicians in Kosovo and Albania," it is stated in Ban Ki-moon's report to the UN Security Council (SC), that Tanjug news agency has seen. "UNMIK remains ready to provide its full support to any further eventual investigations into the allegations that may be conducted in the future," Ban Ki-moon underscored. The latest three-month report of Ban Ki-moon encompasses the period from October 19, 2010 to January 15, 2011, and it is to be submitted to the SC in mid-February, Tanjug learned. "In 2003, UNMIK had provided the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with information and its own findings regarding the allegations contained in the report of Special Rapporteur Marty. In late 2008 and early 2009, UNMIK transferred all pertinent files to the incoming EULEX," the report reads. Ban Ki-moon expressed his regret that "the collapse of the governing coalition in Kosovo and the calling of extraordinary elections delayed the start of the European Union-facilitated dialogue." "It is my hope that the period ahead will see renewed momentum in moving the dialogue process forward, and that developments in Priština will contribute to internal political stability conducive to an early launch of the dialogue," he underscored. "My Special Representative did not call the elections, which were not organized within the framework of resolution 1244 (1999), and will not certify the results," Ban stressed. Ban Ki-moon assessed that the elections were held in a peaceful atmosphere and that there was no escalation of tension among the population. However, he noticed that the organizations that supervised the elections expressed concern about the maintaining of democratic standards.