Security Council Examines Report of Recent U.N. Mission to Kosovo

Ensuring the political engagement of all communities, particularly the Kosovo Serb Community, remained a major challenge for the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK), a high-ranking U.N. official said Friday.

U.N. Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations Jean- Marie Guehenno made the remarks at a Security Council meeting on the council's mission to Kosovo on June 16-18.

The Serb community has "legitimate grievances," particularly over their sufferings from major crimes and ethnically-motivated acts of intimidation, which undermine UNMIK's efforts to convince the community that they would derive tangible benefits from cooperating in the UNMIK-led process, he said.

The mission noted that it conveyed a strong message to all parties concerned on the need to reject all violence and promote safety and reconciliation in the Kosovo Province of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).

The current political process is crucial to combating extremism and encouraging moderates on all sides, the report said. Key to the success of this process is the active engagement and participation of all communities and the mission supporting UNMIK' s efforts to create a multiethnic Kosovo, it added.

The representative of the FRY said his government has called on the Serb community to register for the November 17 election.

However, Kosovo is on the way to being totally transformed into a mono-ethnic community, with two thirds of the Serb population leaving for other parts of the country, he said, calling for an immediate return of displaced persons to safe areas.

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