ALBANIA: Albanian president Moisiu speaks about Ibrahim Rugova, President of Kosovo, who has died.

Record ID: 565250

  • Title: ALBANIA: Albanian president Moisiu speaks about Ibrahim Rugova, President of Kosovo, who has died.
  • Date: 22nd January 2006
  • Summary: (BN12) TIRANA, ALBANIA (JANUARY 21, 2006) (REUTERS) PAN SHOT OF ALFRED MOISIU, PRESIDENT OF ALBANIA, LEAVING NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 6th February 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Albania
  • Country: Albania
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA676ORBHQUDIY3T5A9NUQQEF7D
  • Story Text: Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova died of lung cancer on Saturday (January 21), leaving a leadership vacuum for ethnic Albanians on the eve of talks to secure the independence from Serbia that he championed.
    His death came just days before the United Nations was due to begin direct negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina to decide whether Kosovo's 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority wins independence or remains part of Serbia as Belgrade insists.
    In Albania, President Alfred Moisiu, spoke to Reuters about his memories of Rugova.
    "I have met Mr. Rugova several times, starting from 2003. We met in Kosovo, at the Thessaloniki summit and also here in Tirana. I preserve my best feelings and memories for him as a statesman, as a firm man, as a sacrifice man, brave, because to proclaim with your own mouth this illness needs great courage, and it needs also a great moral. Mr. Rugova was really an uncomplicated man, devoted with all his heart and spirit to his people, to his country, and he will be always a symbol, not only to Kosovo, but to all Albanians."
    61 year-old Rugova had been under care at his villa in the capital, Pristina, since being diagnosed with lung cancer in Sept. 2005 at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. U.S. doctors were supervising his treatment.
    He died without seeing the independence he worked for most of his adult life. But virtually all of the people he led today demand self-determination from Serbia and many flocked to his home on Saturday to pay their respects.
    Moisiu said that the people of Kosovo could best commemorate Rugova by working together to achieve the aims he had stood for.
    "This has been a great loss, which I hope and expect that the people of Kosovo will honour by standing together, politicians and people in order to achieve the outcome that Rugova had dreamed of so much," said Moisiu.
    Rugova has no clear successor in his faction-ridden Democratic League of Kosovo and no plans for his replacement at the helm of the Kosovo negotiating team have been announced.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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