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OO RUEHAG RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN RUEHLZ
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DE RUEHPS #0229/01 0731634
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 141634Z MAR 06 ZDK DUE TO MULTIPLE REQUESTS
FM USOFFICE PRISTINA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5908
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0612
RHMFISS/CDR USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUFNPKD/AFSOUTH NAPLES IT
RHMFIUU/CDR TF FALCON
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEPGEA/CDR650THMIGP SHAPE BE
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RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RUFOANA/USNIC PRISTINA SR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000229 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR DRL, INL, EUR/SCE, AND EUR/SSA, NSC FOR BRAUN, 
USUN FOR DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: CEKU OFF TO GOOD START IN HIS FIRST DAYS 
AS PRIME MINISTER 
 
REF: PRISTINA 218 
 
PRISTINA 00000229  001.3 OF 002 
 
 
Sensitive But Unclassified, Protect Accordingly 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: In his acceptance speech on March 10 and 
interviews over his first weekend as prime minister, former 
Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) commander General Agim Ceku 
stressed Kosovo's future as a multiethnic state, but affirmed 
there can be no solution for Kosovo other than independence. 
Prior to reaching out to Kosovo Serbs, however, he tried to 
heal old wounds among Kosovo's ethnic Albanians by taking his 
cabinet en masse to pay respects to late President Ibrahim 
Rugova and his family as well as to visit the monument to 
Adem Jashari, the figurehead of Kosovo's Kosovo Liberation 
Army fighters.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U) Ceku's first experience in the rough and tumble world 
of Kosovo politics occurred prior to the vote on his 
selection as Prime Minister in the Kosovo Assembly (reftel). 
Members of Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) 
vociferously alleged that Ceku had failed to clean house and 
left in office incompetent and corrupt ministers from the 
government of outgoing prime minister Bajram Kosumi.  Local 
newspapers also did not show any particular enthusiasm for 
Ceku over this point.  Several low-ranking PDK members also 
tried to tarnish Ceku's record as a war hero and discredit 
his patriotism by stating that his wife is Croatian and his 
family lives there rather than in Kosovo.  Sokol Bashota said 
that the best thing about Ceku's selection as prime minister 
is that, as prime minister, Ceku was no longer the head of 
the Kosovo Protection Corps, since he had joined the Kosovo 
Liberation Army (from which most of the members of the KPC 
were taken) only one month before the war ended.  Another low 
ranking Kosovo Assembly member from the PDK said that it was 
inappropriate to have a prime minister whose family lives 
outside of Kosovo.  (NOTE:  Ceku noted in his acceptance 
speech that he was proud of his past as a KLA fighter, and 
that his every day as Kosovo's prime minister will begin by 
keeping in mind the KLA's values which are "sacred to all 
citizens of Kosovo."  The physically imposing Ceku reacted to 
the thinly-veiled attack on his wife and family with a twenty 
second glare at the PDK member who made the statement.  END 
NOTE). 
 
¶3. (U) In his acceptance speech Ceku committed his government 
to building bridges of confidence between Kosovo's people and 
turning ethnic diversities into genuine values of its 
society.  He said that the time of hatred, discrimination and 
suffering should be a thing of the past and that the time has 
come for interethnic reconciliation, integration and 
prosperity.  He told members of the Assembly and 
representatives from international organizations and liaison 
offices present that one thing remains clear -- there is no 
freedom in Kosovo until all its citizens enjoy it.  He told 
Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians that the key to 
realization of their aims is the well-being of and respect 
for Kosovo's minorities.  In the first time in Kosovo's 
history that its prime minister addressed the Serb minority 
in its native tongue, he told Kosovo's Serbs that they have 
and will have their own future and that "Kosovo belongs to 
all of us and all of us together will create a society that 
will guarantee freedom, equality and economic prosperity for 
everyone regardless of their ethnicity."  He called on 
Kosovo's Serbs to fight for their rights together with all 
other citizens of Kosovo by taking part in government 
institutions and by participating in everyday life in Kosovo. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Ceku also said that implementation of UN-mandated 
standards would be a crucial part of his governing agenda not 
just because it has been set up as a pre-condition by the 
international community, but also because implementation will 
help create a democratic and prosperous state.  He added that 
implementation of standards will be the most convincing 
argument in negotiations on Kosovo's status. 
 
¶5. (U) The March 12 edition of Blerim Shala's "Zeri" 
 
PRISTINA 00000229  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
newspaper quoted Ceku as saying in an interview with 
Associated Press that "there can be no other solution for 
Kosovo apart from independence."  Ceku added that the only 
solution that would guarantee the stability and functionality 
of Kosovo is independence and that the integration of 
minorities, their security and their freedom of movement will 
certainly suit the interests of the majority population. 
 
¶6. (SBU) In deference to Kosovo's celebrated dead, on his 
second day in office Ceku led a nearly full complement of his 
cabinet to pay respects to former President Ibrahim Rugova's 
grave in Pristina and to the site of the Jashari family 
deaths and burial in Prekaz. At the Jashari compound Ceku 
said, "this place is for me a moral and historical parliament 
of Kosovo...this is the place where each and every one of us 
should be held accountable for what we do."  However, Slavisa 
Petkovic, ethnic Serb minister for communities and returns, 
did not join the delegation.  His spokesperson said, "he 
would visit and pay homage to Jashari's graveyard, but has 
asked permission from Kosovar institutions and parties if he 
could on the same day pay homage to the Serb children killed 
in Gorazhdec" (NOTE: Gordzhdec is a ethnic Serb majority 
village located in ethnic Albanian majority Peja/Pec 
municipality and was the site of a shooting of two ethnic 
Serb children in 2002 for which perpetrators have not been 
identified.  END NOTE.). 
 
¶7. (U) This cable is cleared in its entirety for release to 
UN Special Envoy Ahtisaari. 
GOLDBERG