TIRANA

Prime Minister Edi Rama appeared today at a media conference about the dramatic events and the attack on the Kosovo police.

Rama has taken clear positions against the EU's position regarding the terrorist attack in the north of Kosovo as well as Serbia's statements.

The Albanian Prime Minister called the Serbian state's holding of a national mourning for the killed terrorists illegal by the criminal group and by the Serbian state against the values ​​of the EU.

"We listened very carefully to the spokesperson of Brussels, who said that there can be no other statement without the results of the investigation on how the Banjska incident unfolded. We could have agreed with this if at least Serbia would have distanced itself from the criminal group that took the life of the Kosovo police officer and would have announced the opening of a serious and independent investigation, but unfortunately the Republic of Serbia chose to honor the victims by the Kosovo special forces declaring a day of national mourning.

Then what investigation is waiting for the EU. By whom? From the justice authorities in Kosovo? And we would agree with this, but I did not hear the EU spokesperson say it and I do not believe that the EU would accept the results of Kosovo despite the fact that those who provoked it were Serbs and despite the fact that the Kosovo police went to the scene to stop the escalation of terror by the Serbian criminal group. Isn't the EU investigating independently? It would be good, but we do not know if the EU has engaged a mechanism in this direction. If we heard this, we would be somewhat relieved, but only in this direction. However, what we asked for with friends in Brussels is not the result of an investigation, which is welcome, but the unequivocal condemnation of the murder of a police officer by a criminal group and also the honoring of an absurd national act in Serbia by some criminals, armed to the teeth, who appeared in Banjska for the demonstration of an illegal force with the language of heavy weapons and were annihilated by the constitutional order of the Republic of Kosovo. Any possible interpretation cannot change these facts", said Rama.

He emphasized that the leadership of Kosovo can and certainly has all its flaws in the normalization dialogue processes, for which our position has been the same as the EU's and does not change even today, but none of those flaws can relativize the extraordinary weight of these serious developments which cannot be compared to anything bad that has happened between Kosovo and Serbia since 1999.

"Here we are before the shedding of innocent blood, and it is not the blood of a passer-by who was killed on the road by a car with Serbian license plates, but the blood of an officer of the Kosovo State Police, who did not kill himself because he saw some Serbian civilians armed in pairs, but by men dressed militarily and heavily armed who for official Belgrade are worthy of lowering the flag to half-mast. This is an illegal violation by the criminal group as well as an institutional one by the Serbian state towards the values ​​and principles of the EU, which does not need an investigation, but requires a loud and clear punishment.

Not only because the families of the murdered policeman, the people of Kosovo, the Republic of Kosovo deserve to listen to the moral and political authority of the EU, not for the seventies or forties of the innocent servant of the state of Kosovo, but because the entire region that has suffered a lot in its history deserves and expects to hear it", declared the Prime Minister.

RAMA: TWO FORCES THAT HAVE CAPTURED ME ARE BLOWING IN MY EARS
Regarding his stance, Rama said that nothing has changed and that if he could go back, he would do the same things.

"I have not changed in anything, in anything. A thousand times we go back, a thousand times I would do the same things, I would say the same things. Today I am taking stock of the things I have said before and at the same time I am doing what I always say. I say what I think and I think what is whispered in my ear by two forces that have captured me since I took this task, one is this here, the two proud eagles of the flag of Skanderbeg and Ismail Qemali and the other force is this here, the flag of the EU. My dream is for this to fly as high as possible to fit here. I may be right and wrong, but these are the forces that have captured me and with these forces I work in my thoughts and in the name of these forces I formulate my thoughts. The rest is the story of soap operas that have nothing to do with me. Here it has nothing to do with a new or old climate, neither with people, nor with emotions. It has to do with strategic positions and actions to advance a certain strategy. "It is not a strategic stance to call me 'Vučić's brother', it is emotional. Those who call me that still have fresh terrible memories of the barbarity of the dictatorial regime in Belgrade. I, on the other hand, am here for strategic stances," Rama said.