Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations

At UN, Kosovo Issue Reduced to Statements Not Passed, Stakeouts Not Given

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 29 -- Even amid clashes in Northern Kosovo, how far the issue has fallen at the UN was exemplified on Tuesday when Kosovo's minister Enver Hoxhaj walked by the fully staff UN Television stakeout in order to speak only to a pro-Kosovo TV station.

  Inner City Press asked Hoxhaj to speak at the public microphone. Instead, Hoxhaj diplomatically gave Inner City Press his business card, explaining that it was a matter of "strategy and tactics."

  Perhaps relatedly, Serbian minister Vuk Jeremic did not speak at the stakeout, or visibly to any camera outside the Security Council. (Inner City Press asked a Serbian spokesperson, who ascribed this only to the lateness of the hour: 1:30 in the afternoon.)

  Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin told Inner City Press he was circulating a draft statement, but didn't expect it to be agreed to. (He noted that Russia had quickly agreed to the UK-drafted statement about protests in UK facilities in Tehran.)

(c) UN Photo
Hoxhaj & Jeremic previously in UNSC, this time no stakeouts shown

  While the Security Council president, Portuguese Ambassador Cabral, told Inner City Press after he read out the UK Embassy statement that he hadn't seen any Russian draft, US Deputy Permanent Representative Rosemary DiCarlo told Inner City Press she had seen it.

  When Inner City Press relayed that Churkin predicted it wouldn't be agreed to, DiCarlo said with a smile, "He's a smart man." And so it goes at the UN.