Ramush Haradinaj submitted his irrevocable resignation today as the Prime Minister of Kosovo.
At the end of the session of the Kosovo government, Haradinaj announced that he would submit his irrevocable resignation, and he stated that he was summoned to appear before the Special Court in The Hague as war crimes suspect, Koha.net reported.
“I received a call by the special court as a suspect and was given the option to go as the prime minister, or as an ordinary citizen of Kosovo,” the 51-year-old politician told reporters in Pristina. “I chose the latter,” he added.
Idro Seferi, a journalist from Kosovo, told the FoNet news agency that Pristina was in a kind of “emergency” following Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj resignation. He said no one expected that and that there was still no reaction from either the authorities or the opposition, but that en early election was looming.
Previously, Haradinaj was charged with war crimes at the now-defunct International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. He was already forced to step down as prime minister in 2005 after a summon from the ICTY.
He said that the responsibility now was with Thaci to start talks with the parliamentary parties and set the date for elections.
„My party and I will run at the next elections, but I couldn‘t lead the country in such situation because that would make Kosovo‘s position difficult,“ Haradinaj said.
He added that the Kosovo government would continue working in its technical capacity until a new one is elected, adding the import taxes on goods from Serbia and Bosnia would remain in place.
The move came only hours after he confirmed a new meeting between Serbia’s and Kosovo officials scheduled in Paris in September.
(Blic, FoNet, 19.07.2019)