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December 03, 2002 As-Salaam ah-laikum. Dr. Rexhep Boja, members of the Islamic Community of Kosovo, esteemed Hoxhas, students of the Madressa, and political party representatives. Thank you for joining us tonight at this Iftar dinner -- you honor us greatly by your presence in these closing days of Ramadan before we all come together to celebrate the high holy day of Eid al-Fitr. It is gratifying to me to look around this table and see representatives of so many of Kosovo's ethnic communities, as well as the different faith communities that make up today's Kosovo and today's world. As an...

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia toughened its stand on Kosovo Tuesday as parliament decided that a planned new constitution would refer to the disputed province as an "integral" part of Serbia, regardless of U.N.-led negotiations on whether to grant it independence. The parliamentary vote effectively ruled out Belgrade's consent if the international talks decide in favor of the majority ethnic Albanians who want the province to be independent. The talks began this year to try to resolve the future of Kosovo _ a province about the size of Connecticut that has been run by the United Nations since NATO launched a...

Since World War Two you have had three major conflicts in the Balkans involving Orthodox Christian communities and Islamic communities; this applies to Cyprus, Bosnia and Kosovo respectively. On all three occasions the United States supported the followers of Islam and maybe one day the same will happen to Orthodox Christians in Macedonia? Yet unlike the large Christian communities of Bosnia and Cyprus, it is the land of Kosovo which is being Islamized and Albanianized under NATO, the UN, and other international institutions who are meant to be neutral. The media in the West is once more turning a 'blind...

11 September 2006 | 12:09 | FOCUS News Agency Belgrade. The acknowledgement of the Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Carla Del Ponte that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) kills its potential witnesses against accused in war crimes is raising the question for the responsibility of all who have performed war crimes in Kosovo and will no be tried, Vecerne Novosti reports. The Hague Tribunal admits that is a sensitive topic and they are not apt to talk about that. But they acknowledge that without good witnesses protection there is no way to reach the truth. KLA and its ex...

The AFP reported last month that there was an explosion at the grave of Bosnia's wartime president and Muslim hero Alija Izetbegovic. Izetbegovic, who was finally, reluctantly, being investigated by the Hague for war crimes against Serbs and others at the time of his death, is buried in a "martyrs'" cemetery, as he requested. Naturally, we are meant to think that the grave bombing was committed by a Serb or Serbs, especially with AFP adding this tidbit: "Tensions have risen in Bosnia in recent days after the broadcast of footage showing a former Muslim general, Atif Dudakovic, ordering his troops...

"The main goal of the symposium is to shed light on how Islam spread in these territories based on undisputed historic facts," professor Morina told IOL. PRISHTINA — The Islamic Community of Kosova (ICK) and the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Prishtina (FIS) will co-organize on September 16-17 an international symposium celebrating 600 years of Islam among Albanians. "The main goal of the symposium is to shed light on how Islam spread in these territories based on undisputed historic facts," professor Qemajl Morina, one of the organizers, told IslamOnline.net. Debates about this issue and the role of Islam among Albanians...

BANJA LUKA -- Banja Luka’s ATV station broadcasted footage of Hamdija Delalić ordering murders and the destruction of villages.Hamdija Delalić, commander of the V corps’ 502 brigades of the Muslim military, can be clearly seen and heard in the video calling for an attack on Fikret Abdić and the Republic of Srpska Military. “A breach must be made. Kill all that stands in front of you. I am permitting and ordering that the enemies be killed using all necessary means, knives, bombs, hunting knives, teeth.” Delalić said to his soldiers in the video. “Can we rape?”Commanders of the 505 and...

Ahtisaari said that a group of experts will visit Belgrade shortly and he hopes that they in Belgrade will show a positive attitude to these proposals. During the press conference, Ahtisaari dismissed the charges of the Serbian delegation that during his Aug 8 with them he told them that the Serbs are guilty as a nation.” Particularly, Ahtisaari said that the Belgrade authorities should understand that the Milosevic policy (historical legacy) should be taken into consideration during the determination of Kosovo status and that “each nation in the world has its guilt and must pay for it.” The Serbian side...

2 September 2006 | 15:23 | FOCUS News Agency Belgrade. The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Serbian President Boris Tadic will sign Thursday a Status of Forces Agreement /SOFA/ in Washington between the government of the Republic of Serbia and the USA. The Agreement is connected to the protection of the status, the access and the use of the military infrastructure in the Republic of Serbia, RTS reported. It will deepen the cooperation in the sphere of defense between Serbia and the USA based on an absolute respect of the two countries’ sovereignty and the UN regulations. Besides,...

30 August 2006 | 14:52 | FOCUS News Agency Banja Luka. USA military forces started preparing for their pullout of the Eagle base near Tuzla, Serbian agency TANJUG informs citing Bosnian newspaper Oslobojdenje. The news of the pullout of the American troops has caused concern among Sarajevo political circles. Citing reliable sources the Bosnian newspaper announced the Americans will leave the base by the end of the year as they will be replaced by a Dutch battalion. The chair of the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Presidency Sulejman Tihic could not confirm definitely the news of the pullout of the US troops...

August 28, 2006 1:57 PM BELGRADE, Serbia-The Serbian Orthodox Church on Monday accused the United Nations' top two envoys for Kosovo of siding with Kosovo's ethnic Albanians in negotiations over the province's future status. The church, which wields considerable influence among Serbs, sharply criticized Joachim Ruecker, Kosovo's U.N. administrator, and Martti Ahtisaari, the U.N.'s chief envoy, saying they "have openly declared their pro-Albanian stances." They "have joined a media campaign for (Kosovo) Albanian interests and wishes. Their recent statements have triggered surprise, worry and bitterness among the Serbian people," it said in a statement. Later Monday, the Serbian government also...

Sarajevo, 24 August (AKI) - Bosnian Muslim leader Sulejman Tihic has told local Serbs to stop talking about a possible referendum on independence, because Bosnia was indivisible and those who don’t like it should leave the country. Tihic, who currently chairs Bosnia’s three-man rotating state presidency, has been an outspoken advocate of Muslim demands for the abolition of Bosnia’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska (RS). Local Serbs for their part have threatened to hold a referendum on independence. The quarrel prompted the high representative of the international community in Bosnia, Christian Schwarz Schilling, to intervene last week demanding that politicians on...

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aug. 23 — For a month usually devoid of political activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, August has been unusually fraught, as several incidents have raised ethnic tensions to a level not seen in years. On Aug. 11, a bomb severely damaged the tomb of Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian president. Last week in eastern Bosnia, a group of Muslims forced their way into a Serbian church built on the former site of a mosque. And the broadcast of a videotape showing the wartime killing of an unarmed Bosnian Serb by Muslims prompted calls for a senior...

Forensic experts have excavated over 1,000 bodies from a mass grave in the village of Kamenica in eastern Bosnia.

The Balkans have historically been the key battlefield between Islam and European civilization since the battle at Kosovo, where the Ottoman Turks clashed with the Serbs in 1389, to the present. At its apex, the Islamic tide reached and was stopped at the gates of Vienna (1683). It was finally pushed out in the Balkan War of 1912, when the combined armies of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria were stopped at the Gates of Istanbul (Constantinople) by the intervention of the great European powers of that period. In reality we have fought on the side of our enemies. As in...

Serbias Foreighn Ministery oficialy strongly supported UN resolution on sending 15,000 peacekeepers to south Lebannon expressing hope that UN securiti councile will be as much as firm regarding future status of Kosovo and Serbias legal claims as souvereign nation. Serbias foreighn ministery said "Hezbollah millitants are eaqualy danger in their beligrance and unacceptance of existing state of Israel as are Kosovo (Muslim) Albanians in their belligrance and millitantism and unacceptance of souvereign borders of Serbia." This i sthe first time that Serbia is officialy eaqulising its own problems with problems of Israel.

A senior Serbian government official has said she would accept a partition of Kosovo if no other long-term solution can be found. The president of Serbia's Co-ordination Centre for Kosovo, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, also said no Serb leader would ever sign a deal giving Kosovo independence. She said Belgrade's policy was for Kosovo province to have substantial autonomy within the Serbian state. Kosovo is technically part of Serbia but has been run by the UN since 1999. The vast majority of Kosovo's population are ethnic Albanian who have been pressing for independence. Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku has ruled out...

WASHINGTON DC -- 25 U.S. Senators are asking that the U.S. president supports the democratically elected Serbian government. The letter argues that Serbia’s role is of vital importance for the future of South-Eastern Europe and America’s regional interests and that Belgrade has grown into a strong U.S. regional partner. “In order to help transform Serbia, the U.S. should support the reforms in the military and the security sectors, encourage cooperation with the Serbian Army and enabling its officers to attend military colleges and courses in the U.S.”, the letter said. The Senators remind that it is Serbia’s strategic goal to...

Footage shown on Serbia RTS central TV shoved amateur footage of muslim Bosnian general Atif Dudakovic openlz ordering his soldiers via hand-radio to burn Christian Serb villages. tape sows Dudakovic telling "Burn this village, burn this haste, burn it all" ant than it ontinues "The boys are already down there, Iw ordered village to be burned" tape continues with male voice telling Dudakovic "This i sSerbian, this is all on fire" This was un continuation of Croate-Muslim offensive "Oluja" (Storm) that ethicaly cleansed 250,000 Christian Serbs in september 1995. During Dudakovic action over 870 Christian Serb civilliand and 400 soldiers...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told European leaders to stop preaching to him about civilian war casualties in an interview published on Sunday in German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Olmert also said it would not be possible to completely destroy Hizbollah and insisted he did not underestimate them, saying they had fired just 3,000 of their arsenal of 15,000 rockets so far. PHOTOS The week's events from around the world, captured in pictures. » VIEW THIS WEEK'S PHOTOS Diplomatic Dispatches Nora Boustany 's column reporting on Washington's diplomatic community appears each Wednesday and Friday in The Post....