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Updated: 12-Oct-2001 Transcripts

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Press Briefing

held on 12 October 2001
at the NATO Press Centre in Skopje

Statement of Major Tim Dunne:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our news conference for today. I'll give you the update for today. Today, I am honoured to be able to tell you that his Excellency, Ambassador Klaus Vollers, the NATO Ambassador to Macedonia, is with us here today, he is available for questions as well. And then, Mr. Robin Seaword, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the OSCE.

First of all for the shooting reports: this extends from Wednesday evening to early this morning; So, on 10 October, two single shots in Lipkovo were reported; late in the evening, again on the 10th, two single shots in Radusa were reported. Again late in the evening, on the 10th two single shots were in different locations around Skopje and then, Wednesday night to Thursday, several single shots were reported north of Tetovo, between 22:00 and 02:00 hrs. On 11 October, there were several shot reports as well. There were 4 in the area of Ratae and Zilce, two in the area of Aracinovo, and a number of single shots in the Gostivar area. There were no casualties, there were no indications that anyone was targeted by the shots, and indeed several of them were directly attributable to celebratory fire. And that concludes the shooting reports. I will now ask Ambassador Vollers to introduce himself.

Statement of Ambassador Klaus Vollers:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I arrived on 1 October and I have taken over from Mr. Eiff. And I am happy to be here. Of course, you will still understand that I am still trying to understand what is going on, I have been talking to people so I don't have a grasp of all the problems yet but I am trying to, and so far, everybody has been very friendly to me. I will be trying to be here on Fridays, if I can, and I hope you that you will be friendly with me. Thank you very much.

Statement of Mr. Robin Seaword:
I don't know what introduction I should make, having been here for two years, I recognize quite a few faces. It's a duty that I actually enjoy I must admit. Harold Schenker, who would normally be doing this, as you all know is away for a day or so, will be back with the party line- whatever it happens to be- but I am it for today.

Question 1: I would like to know if there has been any agreement about the return of the Macedonian security forces in the areas previously held by the NLA. Could you give us more details about this?
Mr. Robin Seaword: I will take this one if I may. I have been dealing very closely with the army of the Republic of Macedonia representatives, representatives of the Ministry of Interior together with the team of TFF, and a team also from the EUMM and as you will be aware, OSCE, EUMM and TFF have been working together. We are working together to support the Republic of Macedonia representatives, in particular the police in the preparation of the plan to return to the villages. And this far, there has been a lot of progress made. I think that you can safely say that at this moment in time, we are approaching a point where we are absolutely ready to do what is required when we are asked to do so. I hope that answers your question.

Question 2: I would like to ask a question to the representative of the OSCE. Has the dispute concerning the training of the Albanian police been solved?
Mr. Robin Seaword: My information as for yesterday is that I believe it has. A minor problem that is now behind us. And I believe that the training is going to continue next week.

Question 3: I have heard that the leader of the former NLA has accepted the amnesty but suggested that it would be better to have a law instead of a statement. Do you expect any further disagreements because of this?
Amb. Vollers: Well, the amnesty has been issued last week. And we all have to look at the text and we all have to see what it really means. That is to say we all hope that it will be passed into reality very soon. I think it is a good sign that Mr. Ahmeti issued a statement and sees it as a political development, positive development. We now have to see what it means in practice, so I think that we should see this next week.

Question 4: Could the representatives of NATO and the OSCE give more detailed explanations as to the events as to the events that happened in Tanusa around Gostivar, about the weapons and the ammunition?
Mr. Robin Seaword: The subject is actually known to us, although the details are unclear. I think the best course of action that I would recommend would be to contact the CMC, which is looking after those incidents in terms of recording them and identifying what the problems were. And indeed, the CMC is the focal point for this. We meet on a daily basis so perhaps I could direct you in that direction.

Question 5: To Mr. Seaword: Two days ago, early in the morning in Dracevo, police reservists have beaten several Albanians. We have the names of these Albanians in our editor's office, do you know anything about this?
Mr. Robin Seaword: Unfortunately, and I am afraid that you are going to be disappointed, but I don't. Once again, all of the incidents we are aware of and actually there are not that many, as it was mentioned earlier, are actually recorder and discussed within the CMC on a daily basis. And the CMC, will have information that is available.
Journalist: What is CMC?
Mr. Robin Seaword: This is the Coordination Center which has been set up by the Government, i.e. the Crisis Management Center- which was set up by the Government and is actually where we on a daily basis- as I have said- meet to discuss, to exchange notes on the activities in the preceding 24 hrs. And therefore, they are the focal point to tell you what has been happening and what the combined view of events is.

Question 6: To Ambassador Vollers: You stated that you still have to look at the text of the amnesty. Haven't you already looked at it, since it was published a few days ago? And can you now change it, since we know that this is only within the authority of the President of the country.
Amb. Vollers: Of course, at the question of changing the text of the President: this text is a new text and of course it is a political gesture and we have to find out how it will translate into reality because it is not a legal text, so this is a positive development but we have to see how this development goes on next week, what it means in practice.

Question 7: Considering what Ambassador Vollers stated, can you say that there is a direct link between the amnesty issue, seeing how the amnesty is going to work in reality and the return of the Macedonian security forces?
Amb. Vollers: It is obvious that a working amnesty will facilitate the return to the villages of course because there might be people afraid without amnesty. And they might take-up resistance, so of course, a working amnesty will facilitate the whole process and that is the intention, I understand which is behind it.

Question 8: To Mr. Seaword: A great deal of the mandate of the OSCE has already passed and you still have not started the mission, so can you foresee any delay of the mission after the deadline? I have some information that the OSCE will leave the country together with the TFF, is this true?
Mr. Robin Seaword: It is my understanding that once the work of TFF and the work of the OSCE are linked, quite clearly nonetheless the work of the OSCE is here in agreement with the Government. And if the Government requires us to stay on, for whatever length of time it happens to be, then I am sure that an arrangement will be made to do that in the interest of the country.

Question 9: Is the OSCE mission completed and ready to begin? Because when Mr. Joanna was here, he said that it was going to be completed soon, so can you tell us more details about it, for example, how many people are here, have they started going to different places, and I will again repeat the question, have they been to Tanusa?
Mr. Robin Seaword: I will take the last question first if I may- not at the moment. However, we are in the process of completing the build-up of people, as you would understand it does take a little time to have all the people here. It is quite a considerable increase. But we are nearing that; the training of people, specific to their role here is almost complete. Should there be a decision for us to commence a particular phase -we are talking about the role of the OSCE in the country- then we would be ready to do that as I have said before.
Amb. Vollers: I can assure you on my side that if the Government wants us to stay, with the Fox mission, we are prepared to stay longer than is now agreed on.

Question 10: Can we finally know what the reason for delaying for the return of Macedonian forces is, because first it was said that amnesty has to be adopted, but now the amnesty has been adopted, so what is the reason?
Mr. Robin Seaword: I am going to cheat again. I am waiting for the political level to tell us that we can get on with the job that we have actually arranged to do. And I will be honest with you: that's exactly what we are waiting for. We are ready, we have been working very closely as I have said before, with TFF, with the EUMM colleagues who are here already, and also with representatives of the Government in terms if the Ministry of Foreign, Defence and Internal affairs, particularly the police. We are ready and when the conditions allow, we will go ahead. I will now pass that question, if I may, directly over to the Ambassador Vollers.
Journalist: Can you tell us what you mean by 'political level'?
Mr. Robin Seaword: I think that side question is best answered by the Ambassador but clearly, our own special representative, Van der Stoell, Ambassador Vollers and so on- are working with the government on that issue.
Amb. Vollers: We are working with the government on the question of return in the villages and the method of returning to the villages. So far we had several meetings, we will have another meeting on Monday and I think that both sides agree that it is mainly the question of the Macedonian government, but we try to agree on how the methodology will be- the selection of villages, etc. So, I think that next week we will see a positive development after what we saw last week.