Kosovo Quotes

Kosovo's destiny is clearly to join the European Union at some point.

Kosovo is a small country but it also has a lot of riches that were granted to us by God.

Imagine a part of the U.S.A., from which the U.S.A. started - where is the cradle of your history? This is Kosovo for Serbia.

All sorts of artillery installations, rockets and tank units that are firing on civilians in Kosovo should be neutralized. If that means air strikes, then NATO should carry out air strikes.

There will be a lot of competitive and strong companies coming here and even though Kosovo is a small country that undoubtedly has a lot to offer to global trade; one of our main interests is to expose it to the world market.

My vision is to have an independent Kosovo, democratic, with a politically tolerant society and with a solid economy, integrated into the EU, the NATO and to continue with our good relations with the USA.

I believe that ultimately the situation in Kosovo can only be resolved through self-determination.

I think it's appropriate for the international community in situations like this to intervene in Kosovo. I am in favor of an intervention. On some level, you have to say that at least somebody is doing something.

So as far as Serbia is concerned, it does not have the right to influence the privatization or to claim any property, because Kosovo is a former member of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The speed of movement towards independence will depend on Kosovo demonstrating that it is capable of treating minorities well. We have not always seen that.

It is difficult to say today whether the Battle of Kosovo was a defeat or a victory for the Serbian people, whether thanks to it we fell into slavery or we survived in this slavery.

As the president of Kosovo, I am more concerned about the current situation with the employment standing at around 70 % of the population, which is young, with great potential, speaking many foreign languages and having wide expertise.

I very much regret that our administration has pushed the whole issue of Kosovo to the back burner.

The privatization law draft was recently released and I believe that very soon we will start applying it, of course taking into consideration the provisions of UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo).

Kosovo today is closer to Europe than other countries in the region of South Eastern Europe.

But we acted pre-emptively in Kosovo in 1999 to stop Milosevic from doing what he was doing and increasingly doing the ethnic cleansing in a systematic way.

We think that Kosovo will continue to serve as a centre of violence and regional instability in future.

The EU should have consolidated its different presences and purposes in Kosovo earlier.

I support the recommendations made by the International Crisis Group. The primary responsibility is for Kosovo Albanians to demonstrate that their treatment of minorities is adequate.

At the time when this famous historical battle was fought in Kosovo, the people were looking at the stars, expecting aid from them. Now, six centuries later, they are looking at the stars again, waiting to conquer them.

Milosevic will never stop, because he is fighting for personal power in Serbia. The only way to stop him is cutting the functioning of his war machine. He is spending $1.7 million a day on his war machine in Kosovo.

Instead of the international police action we had hoped for during the war in Kosovo, there are wars again - conducted with state-of-the-art technology, but still in the old style.

Kosovo is too close to Europe. It is not only close to Albania, it is close to Greece, Italy, Germany and Switzerland, where there are still many Kosovo refugees. Spontaneous reactions could multiply.

The most important thing is that Milosevic agreed to sit at the negotiating table with the Kosovo Albanians.

We have the EURO as a currency, which means a lot. It has not just stabilized the situation in Kosovo politically and economically, but also facilitated the direct contact that we have with Europe.

The different Ministries have to work more on the promotion of the country, to build Kosovo's public image. Concrete projects must be assembled, in order to activate our businessmen to have more contacts. We have to create a positive image about ourselves.

I want to emphasize the fact that the independence of Kosovo should and will be recognized.

It depends on the situation. I mean, on one hand there's the argument that people should be left alone on the other hand, there's the argument to wade in a stop slaughters in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and what we probably should have done in Rwanda.

As a Republican, I voted with President Clinton consistently in our efforts to bail out our European friends in Kosovo to stop genocide. I am proud of those votes. I am proud of President Clinton for that.