OSCE Chairman-in-Office visits Kosovo

VIENNA, 5 October 1999 - The Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek of Norway, will visit Kosovo on 6 and 7 October. The Chairman-in-Office will discuss the rebuilding of civil society in Kosovo with the OSCE Mission in Kosovo and the leadership of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Forming the institution building component of UNMIK, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo has as its main responsibilities the training of police, civil servants and members of the judiciary, as well as the monitoring of human rights, the organising and monitoring of elections and the development of independent media and civil society in Kosovo.

The Chairman-in-Office will visit the OSCE-run Kosovo Police School in Vucitrn, where he will meet police cadets from different ethnic groups. In Pristina he will open the OSCE Political Party Support Centre and visit the re-established Radio and TV Centre.

During the visit Minister Vollebaek will meet with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Mr. Bernard Kouchner, the Commander of KFOR, General Michael Jackson, as well as with Kosovo Albanian leaders, Kosovo Serb representatives and leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo.