UN Security Council Hears Clash Over Kosovo Institutions and Past Atrocities
Kosovo’s first deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Glauk Konjufca, told the United Nations Security Council that closing parallel Serbian institutions in northern Kosovo has increased legal security, rejecting reports by the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) as relying on propaganda. Speaking shortly after Marko Đurić addressed the chamber, Konjufca defended recent police actions and local administrative rollouts, while sharply criticizing a first-instance war crimes verdict against former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders.
Konjufca Defends Police Actions in Northern Kosovo
Addressing the council following a briefing by UNMIK head Peter Due, Konjufca argued that Kosovo stands as one of the most stable democracies in Southeast Europe, pointing to recent democratic elections and institutional consolidation. He claimed that measures taken to shutter parallel Serbian structures in the north aimed to curb ethnic division rather than harm residents. According to Konjufca, local authorities have established functioning civil services for kataster, business registration, pensions, employment, power supply, and tax administration in the northern municipalities. He asserted that no citizen had been left without basic services and that police operations cooperated closely with KFOR and EULEX.
Those claims met stark counterarguments from Belgrade. Đurić told the council that ongoing institutional closures, property demolitions, and evictions have deepened insecurity and fear among the remaining Kosovo Serb population, while UNMIK chief Peter Due warned that administrative and police steps combined to heighten a sense of unequal treatment.
Casualty Figures for Kosovo Conflict Are Disputed
The diplomatic exchange included a sharp disagreement over wartime casualties. Konjufca stated twice during the session that Serbia killed 12,000 unarmed Albanians during the Kosovo conflict, a figure that diverges from documentary records compiled by human rights monitors and official bodies. Research by the Humanitarian Law Fund (HLC) and HLC Kosovo under the “Kosovo Memory Book” project recorded 13,535 dead and missing persons of all nationalities between January 1998 and the end of 2000, which included 10,812 Albanians—composed of 8,676 civilians alongside combatants—along with 2,197 Serbs and 526 individuals from other groups. Meanwhile, Kosovo’s Institute for Crimes Committed During the War presented preliminary figures of 12,230 total victims of all nationalities for the period between January 1998 and June 20, 1999.
Konjufca also addressed the origins of the 2015 establishment of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, attributing the court’s creation to allegations of organ trafficking originating from Serbia. Historical investigative records trace those allegations differently, pointing to a 2011 report by Dick Marty, a rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, following public accusations by former Hague Tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte.
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