PRISTINA: Parliament in Kosovo, Europe’s newest independent state which relies on NATO troops for its protection, voted on Thursday to set up a 5,000-strong national army though its Serb minority said the move was illegal.
Serb deputies, backed by Belgrade which does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, have blocked any such move in the past saying creation of a national army required a change to the constitution.
But three laws promoted by the Kosovo government and passed by a parliamentary vote on Thursday simply upgraded the mandate of the lightly-armed domestic Kosovo Security Force (KSF) to become a national army — something which the government said did not require any changes to the constitution.
The vote was passed with 98 in favor in the 120-seat parliament, though it was boycotted by the legislature’s 11 Serb deputies. A second vote will be required in the next few days.
“The three laws have one task, to protect the territorial integrity of Kosovo, to protect the citizens of all communities in Kosovo,” Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said before the vote.
The landlocked Balkan territory of 1.8 million, which declared independence in 2008, is still guarded by 4,000 stationed NATO troops nearly two decades after the end of the war.
NATO moved into the fledgling state in June 1999 following weeks of air strikes to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians by Serbian forces fighting a two-year counter-insurgency after the break-up of Yugoslavia.
The United States and most of the European Union member states recognize Kosovo. But objections by permanent Security Council members Russia and China which back Serbia in not accepting Kosovo’s statehood prevent it from being a member of the United Nations.
The laws passed said the new army would have 5,000 active soldiers and 3,000 reservists. The present KSF security force is a lightly armed, 2,500-strong force trained by NATO and tasked with crisis response, civil protection and ordinance disposal.
NATO says it has no plans to leave the territory just now, but it suggested that any change to the status of the KSF might lead to a reduction in its forces there.
“Any change in the structure, mandate and mission of the Kosovo Security Forces is for the Kosovo authorities to decide,” a NATO official told Reuters in an emailed answer.
“NATO supports the Kosovo Security Force under its current mandate. Should this mandate evolve, the North Atlantic Council will have to re-examine the level of NATO’s engagement in Kosovo. We cannot predict decisions by the North Atlantic Council.”
Kosovo votes to create national army over Serb objections
Kosovo votes to create national army over Serb objections
- Europe’s newest independent state which relies on NATO troops for its protection, voted to set up a 5,000-strong national army
- The landlocked Balkan territory of 1.8 million, which declared independence in 2008, is still guarded by 4,000 stationed NATO troops
UN experts condemn US move to strip migrant children of legal aid
- Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an effort to deport hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the US without their parents
WASHINGTON: UN human rights experts on Tuesday denounced the Trump administration’s decision last year to cut legal aid for unaccompanied children in US immigration proceedings. The condemnation came days after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk urged the Trump administration to ensure that its migration policies respect individual rights and international law.
“Denying children their rights to legal representation and forcing them to navigate complex immigration proceedings without legal counsel is a serious violation of the rights of children,” said the independent experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.
The White House dismissed the experts and said it had made attempts to locate children it says were smuggled into the United States under the previous administration, without elaborating with specific examples.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Deportations of unaccompanied migrant children breach obligation of non-refoulement, experts says
• White House assures migrants receiving full due process
• Over 600,000 unaccompanied migrant children have crossed US-Mexico border since 2019
“No one takes the UN seriously because of their extreme bias and selective outrage – they should be praising the Administration for protecting children, not lying about our policies,” Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, said.
In February, the US Department of the Interior ordered legal service providers working with the children to stop work and cut their funding. The providers sued over the move and a federal judge later temporarily restored the funding for the program. The cuts came amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an effort to deport hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the US without their parents.
The UN experts called the deportations unlawful and said they breached international human rights law prohibiting the removal of vulnerable groups, including children at risk of human trafficking. They also condemned the administration’s $2,500 offer to get the unaccompanied children to voluntarily leave the US
“Child-sensitive justice procedures should be guaranteed in all immigration and asylum proceedings affecting children,” said the experts, who have been in contact with the US government on the issue.
More than 600,000 migrant children have crossed the US-Mexico border without a parent or legal guardian since 2019, according to government data.
