Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06PRISTINA781
2006-09-16 15:44:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Pristina
Cable title:  

KOSOVO: TURKISH LANGUAGE LAW MOTION REJECTED BY

Tags:  PGOV PREL PINR PHUM KDEM UNMIK YI 
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FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6508
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0843
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
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RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
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RUFOANA/USNIC PRISTINA SR
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000781 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/05/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR PHUM KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: TURKISH LANGUAGE LAW MOTION REJECTED BY
KOSOVO ASSEMBLY


Classified By: COM TINA KAIDANOW FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000781

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN,
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/05/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR PHUM KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: TURKISH LANGUAGE LAW MOTION REJECTED BY
KOSOVO ASSEMBLY


Classified By: COM TINA KAIDANOW FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: A motion to make Turkish an official
language of Prizren municipality and change the population
requirement for official languages from 6% to 5% was rejected
September 14 in a 48-41 vote of the Kosovo Assembly. Though
Assembly votes are anonymous, all signs indicate the majority
of "no" votes came from the Democratic League of Kosovo
(LDK). This was despite an unambiguous message from visiting
DAS DiCarlo to the LDK caucus head that the USG favored
passage of the amendment as a symbol of Kosovar Albanians'
willingness to address the concerns of key ethnic minorities.
The LDK caucus head later defended his opposition to the
amendment as part of Kosovar "democracy"; he was roundly
taken to task by USOP and warned again that the status
settlement will require party discipline and support for all
the elements of the status package, including
decentralization. END SUMMARY.

Assembly Vote Fails on Turkish Language Amendment


2. (C) As part of the Contact Group 13 priority standards,
Kosovo's Assembly was required to adopt several pieces of
minority-related legislation, including a Law on the Use of
Languages that would meet Council of Europe requirements for
safeguarding the language rights of key minority communities,
particularly the Serb community in Kosovo. The Assembly
passed a Law meeting these requirements on July 27; the law
stipulated a six percent population threshhold for making a
community language official in its municipality, and a three
percent threshhold for communities that want to communicate
with their municipality in their own language. It also
enabled, but did not require, any municipality in which a
language has been in traditional use to make the language
official in that locale.


3. (SBU) Though there has been no official census for 15
years, Turks will likely not reach the 6 percent mark in
Prizren, where the Turkish population of Kosovo is
concentrated. This is in part due to the fact that the
overwhelmingly Turkish town of Mamusha was separated from
Prizren and designated as a "pilot municipality" as part of
last year's PISG-led (and largely abortive) decentralization
effort. Faced with the prospect of the removal of Turkish as
an official language in Prizren, Turkish Assembly member
Mahir Yagcilar proposed an amendment to reduce the quota to 5
percent Kosovo-wide and make Turkish official in Prizren
based on its traditional use in the city, regardless of the
number of Turkish speakers. The amendment was not
incorporated into the law approved by the Assembly in July,
leaving Yagcilar to invoke a little-used consitutional
mechanism whereby a three-member panel, representing the
aggrieved minority, the government, and UNMIK/the Council of
Europe, was convened to consider amending the law post facto.
The motion agreed to by the three-person panel on September
7 contained the same provisions as Yagcilar's initial July
proposal, reducing the population quota to 5 percent and
making Turkish official in Prizren notwithstanding the Turks'
failure to meet the threshhold there. The panel's
recommendation was put on the Assembly's agenda for the
September 14 plenary session.

LDK Caucus Holds Out


4. (C) Prior to the Assembly vote, COM met with leading
members of the LDK to urge support for the measure, given
Kosovar Albanian equities in demonstrating their sensitivity
to the concerns of important ethnic communities in Kosovo.
Visiting EUR DAS Rosemary DiCarlo also urged LDK caucus head
Alush Gashi, in a September 13 meeting with all four Albanian
caucus heads in the Assembly, to consider the Turkish
amendment a priority. The message found resonance among the
three leading parties outside the LDK: Democratic Party of
Kosovo (PDK)'s Jakup Krasniqi, AAK's Gylnaze Syla, and the
Reform Party (ORA)'s Nazim Jashari (as well as the Group for
Integration's Ferid Agani) all publicly pledged their group's
support for the motion, with Krasniqi giving the standards

PRISTINA 00000781 002 OF 002


requirement as PDK's reason to vote in favor.


5. (C) LDK's Gashi, in contrast, encouraged his LDK Assembly
members to vote individually and indicated his own skepticism
about the amendment. As a consequence, the amendment failed
by a vote of 48-41, with LDK members the likely culprits (the
Assembly's electronic voting system prevents a determination
of who precisely voted for and against). LDK MPs lamely
claimed reluctance to burden Prizren financially by requiring
it to hire more Turkish translators, but the actual effect
would be negligible since business in Prizren is already
conducted in Turkish, including within the municipal
government.

Comment


6. (C) The reason for the law's failure is far more
prosaic than the excuses offered by the LDK caucus; Prizren's
mayor, Eqrem Kryeziu, is less than fond of his Turkish
municipal partners and was averse to providing them any
"special benefits" in law, fearing further demands for rights
and privileges. Kryeziu, a top LDK official, used his
connections within the Assembly, particularly with Gashi and
the ever-unhelpful Sabri Hamiti (an Assembly Presidency
member),to kill the provision despite repeated entreaties
from COM and other members of the Contact Group and at least
the nominal support of the LDK leadership in the person of
President Sejdiu. The failure of the amendment is
discouraging because it indicates that personal connections
feature more prominently in Assembly considerations than
party discipline. While the law approved in its first
reading in July probably meets the Council of Europe
requirements for minority protection, the vote on the Turkish
amendment was an early litmus test of the Kosovo's Albanian
leadership's willingness to reassure and protect its
minorites. Their refusal to extend their good will towards
even the Turks, who are pro-independence, means that we will
need to invest considerable effort in ensuring that other
standards-related legislation moves through without the same
difficulty. END COMMENT.


7. (SBU) U.S. Office Pristina clears this cable in its
entirety for release to U.N. Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari.
KAIDANOW