after a less than successful election and allegations of organized crime including organ trafficking and heroin smuggling this self-proclaimed country is a threat to its neighbors. and. to discuss the allegations made against kosovo's leadership i'm joined by misha governing ovitz in london he is a political expert on the balkans also in london we have his excellent means that mazi he is the albanian ambassador to the u.k. and to the republic of ireland and in new york we go to alan cooperman he's an associate professor at the l.b.j. school of public affairs at the university of texas and another member of our cross talk team yell on the hunger all right gentlemen crosstalk rose in effect there are difference of opinions on this program and i'd like my viewers to see them if i go to you alan first the allegations that came out of the council of europe are serious allegations against the leadership particular the prime minister of course of all over a week ago or so these are very serious allegations given your knowledge of the

balkans how much are you surprised by this and do you think they're true and what about the timing of it all. well you know for folks who've been following this for a long time it's no surprise to have a report that says that there is an organized crime in cost of and then in fact the leadership in cost of all right now which are descendants of the rebel group the cost of the liberation army that they are connected to this organized crime we've known that all along from from the time the rebellion started in the late one nine hundred ninety s. the latest allegations about trafficking in human organs are not new but still not yet proved but even if those turned out not to be true the reality is that the leaders in causes are descendants of organized crime and the question is how much are they still involved in that sort of organized crime trafficking of drugs track of trafficking of people and now maybe trafficking of

human organs as for the timing you know from my perspective i wish that there had been open discussion of this in the late one nine hundred ninety s. and maybe the united states and the u.k. wouldn't have been so eager to support this criminal element coming to power in kosovo but right now that's water under the bridge and we have to figure out how to go forward ok if i go to you me show a lot of people were saying back then exactly what alan just said now it was a mistake to back these people the most violent element in kosovo is politics i mean there are intelligence reports out there that we knew exactly who we were dealing with but at the same time in one thousand nine hundred ninety. this is a reference back to that i'd like to quote someone rather well known today fighting for the k.l.a. is fighting for human rights in american values joe lieberman said that in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine i wonder if he would stick by those words today

go ahead make sure. well he might do because some people are quite brazen about it and think that independent kosovo is in the interest of the united states but you're quite right many of those things were known at the time and many other things have become worse but we have to go back right to the beginning namely to that intervention by nato effectively the bombing of the whole of serbia and then occupation of kosovo something very unusual is taken place there which has been ignored and it is something that probably indicts not just mr touchy and that caylee it indicts the united states and had the dates and then took because for nato to move in because they've asked not only for withdrawal of the yugoslav army at the time they've insisted on the withdrawal of the police and all the legal authorities in place in kosovo at the time so he would simply have a program

a lawless province at that stage with the police from anywhere with all them from new york with all them from london it won't take long before you're going to get increased criminal activity here there was a demand by the united states for the complete withdrawal of all the legal organs the judges the court everything so in fact when nato entered kossovo it entered into a lawless province that is where we all start as regards mr touchett well obviously this he's being targeted here by the council of europe and they're fairly detailed report i should say that goes into some intelligence. reports as well but indicted along with this are of course all those that have supported mr touchett and that means the nato powers of the united states but also the state of albania because many of the things that that i mentioned in the report have taken place.

with a no brainier there is talk of carefully. operating directly from tirana and using albanian territory with the support of at the time socialist government of ok so i want to take you live to ok you mentioned albanian we have the ambassador here. vassar to london and and to also on the irish public or how do you i will react to the allegations that dick marty made in his report because we have the prime minister of course of all threatening to sue him but i think you know it's fair to say that this investigator dick marty has a pretty good road record i mean two thousand and seven with extreme rendition he was proven very correct on those so i mean given his background a lot of people wanted to smirk his character but he's got a pretty good record mr ambassador what do you think about all these charges well i would like to start with the two previous speakers and i think that they put the

scene a little bit wrongly or suiting their own particular interests i think that the whole think didn't start with the k.l.a. in kosovo. the whole thing in kosovo started with the policy of the milosevic regime of serbia which actually had been trampling underfoot all the national. other human rights that every people in every nation should enjoy and as such they had stripped kosovo from the autonomy that it had before completely only laterally abrogated all the organs of course or ninety ninety nine by a decree in belgrade and what is worse and that has been proven by a lot of international reports is the use then of the military and the paramilitary of the army mr ambassador we how do you react to the report that is come out i mean and the indictment of the leadership of kosovo today i think on this program we

could speak for months and months who did right who did wrong ok i think i would like to invoke saying a lot of wrongs were committed by a lot of people ok full stop but what about this report because the cost of leadership is extreme is an indictment here it's a damning indictment go ahead sir. actually if the center of the discussion today is about the report that's fine i could start with the reports but didn't ask the question about the reports for the two first speakers and these two gentlemen are known to be political analysts of the of the balkans or the have the right and he will have an opportunity to respond they certainly will if they will also the really weird and anyway but so we have to put it into perspective when the whole thing started it was after the entire population of one million had been at gunpoint hours that evicted forcefully at trainloads like in the times of program out of their homeland. and than because of that terrible humanitarian situation

with one million people the victims five hundred thousand of whom came to albania four hundred fifty thousand volts or sheltered in macedonia i'm sorry but it's true and as it came mr ambassador was very clear can you answer the question we're talking about this report ok. now we come to the report so let's build the let's put the bag around to a clear perspective as it was it was the beginning of this broadcast the report is a serious one it has very serious allegations and i think that the way we have seen it and we have seen very closely it has. in its entirety been based not on facts there is no one single fact the report writes on things that were basically written in two thousand and four there are no new evidence if there is new evidence that this gentleman called dick martin marty whatever he should produce the evidence not say and not hide behind sheltering be the evidence sheltering the trying to protect the witnesses and so on but you know if

there's i could just jump in here now i know how i had probably been is that. is that is that the case the k.l.a. and its descendants in the current government in cost of zero uses ruthless tactics against anybody who might testify against them and so the former prime minister of cos of. it was called up to the hague and was prosecuted for war crimes before and after the nato intervention so we shouldn't. take the ambassador at his word that the problem started only after the ethnic cleansing there was criminal activity there were war crimes by the k.l.a. before serb troops rolled in and did the ethnic cleansing but the fact that there is no right to prosecute. in the hague his cronies started intimidating and threatening with death those who might testify so it's true that it's very hard to get the hard evidence on the record in this case but that's

because the k.l.a. threatens to kill anyone who testifies against them mr ambassador this is let me jump in i mean these are all words from oh there's not one single proof that can prove disprove and in the say the fact is that i will try to do now has been indicted not only in a number of others this is still going on that means that albanian serve also been taken into the courts the headache for what has been alleged to have been doing and when because it will come with a final verdict then we can talk about the certainty is that i'm hearing from alan the ok before we go to the great story before we go to break and i do listen to me showjumping even we've only heard you once so far in the program going indeed there are a number of misrepresentations you would have to place mr ambassador who simply used one and i notice that in these writings mr kuperman has done it too as well pretty much the. community has done it this is the issue

twenty years ago with mr middle schoo each pull to. removing we are told on me. of course and doing it unilaterally this is entirely untrue you know ninety nine point nine percent of what the media and the west and i could demick institution are reported is incorrect what has actually happened is that there has been a constitutional change in the status of kosovo and this required the support of all six republics and the yugoslav constitution at the time could not simply be changed by simply one republic it required the complete consensus already of all i'm sorry me so i'm going to have to show you here we're going to go to one for english gentlemen we're going to go to a break and work well with this message when we get back after a short break we'll continue our discussion on cost or stay part.

if you want to. it's the secret incursion into the country. it's the invasion by means of. tradition the language is really. so that the best to beat the beat. culture. the thing is. the have the dems are still unaware of what's going on in their land still asking too much. i don't know anything about alaska they're great. on our cheap. nature and discover its beauty.

communicate with the wind and. test yourself and become free. see what nature can give you. say. welcome back to cross talk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing if kosovo is a criminal state. but before let's see what russians think about this issue. a crime boss on top constable prime minister hesham patches democratic party of casaba won the country's first post independence general elections many call this ball

a significant milestone in the development of amal to ethnic democracy kosovo declared independence from serbia on the seventeenth of february two thousand and eight the russian public opinion research center gauge its citizens opinion on the issue of cost of four to seven percent of the respondents say foreign countries should not intervene in their fears of another country and another twenty two percent believe they should nonetheless the west has already come directly related the people of costa on the election. ok we should like to go back to you given this report and i would agree with the ambassador let's make sure we get all of the facts out there however dick marty has a good road record in investigating things but. really hasn't nato got so much blood on its hands right now and so much responsibility to pass it over to the e.u. this is a. orphan within the european union they can wash their hands of this this is their

problem now and they have what could be a war criminal and if even worse as their ally in kosovo i mean the cows are coming home they supported these people now they're going to have to cover up for him make excuses more aid money is being poured in there i mean this is really turning into a kind of a somewhat of a nightmare for nato and the u.s. you know so you agree with you fully many people would say that this was predictable it was predictable ten years ago first of all of course the whole nato operation was cut him and all. called into international law but let us face it intervening carrying out to effectively an act of aggression was in the soup. walk crime at nuremberg that is why the nazi war criminals were being hung you know here you could hang all nineteen nato leaders for that if we wanted to be

consistent in this particular case and let us face that cost so war was in fact a forerunner for iraq and a foreigner for afghanistan before that now those last two iraq and afghanistan are now being treated in the west as a large extent failed adventures especially in iraq but this is not being recognized in the case of kosovo kosovo in fact has been protected so that the west can show at least here we did some good will this is no all being on the ravelled and it is being on the rebel not by let's say china or by russia whoever oppose this but it is being unreliable directly from europe from the council of europe with forty seven members participating in it and i think this is going to put nato and the intervening powers in a very difficult situation ok but clearly we need to get through in order brought that into cross ok alan if i can go to you allan real quick here here here i was

going to allan you know i understand from your writing i think your question here is what do we know i was going to say you know i know your writings on this that we can't undo what's been done ok the western recognition of kosovo you don't think we should undo it ok that may be a different topic for another program but how do we deal with the legacy here because if i could if i could quote dick marginally i think that's what it's like a quality how do you like to quote dick marty from the from there his report here he said it said this on the sixteenth of this one i don't think one can build the future of a country without working towards truth and working without memory he also went on to say there will be never be a peaceful coexistence between the different communities if we continue to pretend not to know and i think that's very hard how do. square the circle them not i'm doing it because coming to some kind of closure on this go ahead i think the first the first thing that we need to understand as a result of this report is we have to understand the fear of serbs in costs of. the

united states the u.k. have been saying for years to the serbs just live in cost of under albanian rule that's life just move on and forget the past but if you understand that not only were serbs ethnically cleanse not only were serbs killed not only were certain serb church is an historical sites destroyed but maybe in fact serbs had their organs physically removed they were killed their organs are physically removed and sold you can start to understand why the serbs of kossovo don't want to live under ethnic albanian rule and that's why it's very very important for us to understand that and to put pressure on prishtina to do to ensure that they give autonomy to the serbs the serbs north of the ybarra river in northern cause of o. and also to serve enclaves elsewhere in cost so that's first of all second of all i think that mr marty is is right that if we as i've said i don't think we can

reverse history i don't think that we can after seventy two countries recognize the independence of kosovo i don't think we can get them to recognize the independence of kosovo but we can't have a cost of zero in the heart of europe we can have a cause for that's a criminal state and we saw what that means is that we have to instill the rule of law and you don't instill the rule of law by burying crimes you have to uncover the crimes and you have to deal with them and so what we have to say the cause of it was yes we want you to be a full participant in europe eventually a member of the e.u. but that will never happen until you deal honestly with the crimes of the past those i think are the two most important lessons from this report use your master what do you think about what alan just said. well i think this topic requires quite a lot of more time than we have at our disposal first as i said all the allegations have been taken seriously by us and we have looked closely at all the paragraphs

we see a very clear political bias in what has been said in the reports by the author of the report and this report has not been cleared by the parliamentary assembly of the council of europe also is that he's telling the truth for the first time that's the bias and mr ambassador it is the what is a genuine what is the agenda then you say he has an agenda the author of this report what is the agenda i have i have read the report very carefully and it looks like he tries the whole climate of the whole image of the albanian nation and people on both sides of the border. it is one that is thrown mud onto there's a lot of insult on the culture on the traditions of the history and under the pretext of revealing of the past and revealing the truth i think you cannot in southern asia because this unacceptable at all and what you have been saying is utterly wrong you can talk about a criminal state at the center of your but you are absolutely wrong and the entire

message is that the second point let me finish the second point is. he wants to sort of play of a parallel line between what happened in kosovo at the hands of a lot of its machinery of war machinery and what the k.l.a. did which you cannot do and it's absolutely wrong and thirdly in this report there is not any new clear evidence to substantiate what he writes he says he has some and if he has some less to reveal everything he has every fact to the ulick's office and possible then when we talk about the fourth point where the cost of oil is a viable state or not and whether nato has been depicted the way of it i have heard from both you would gentleman is very unacceptable nagel's hands are not bloodstain at all nato did what it was required to do to protect an entire people from manipulation and actually nato put an end to the balkan wars and we have all the fact they were for doing that otherwise we would have seen probably more atrocities

going on in nato in in europe and i don't agree with the terms of what i have heard before this is not the the i would say of a civilized language that we would use in television however i have also the right to say that my authorities have in two thousand and four cooperated fully with carla del ponte first team of fifteen prosecutors coming from the heart from the hague and they concluded that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever so there is was no need to open a case dick martin himself visit dublin in two thousand and nine and it was given all the assistance he required and yesterday the protected. office into it armor made a clear statement saying it's absolutely untrue what has been said in the report ok however the of the authorities in my country will be fully available to cooperate again with those institutions that are specialized to engage in investigations that require more expertise than the council of europe is doing with me she would rides

me sure yeah you satisfied with that are you satisfied with that that the authorities in kosovo would be for so forthcoming you know that they have the eleven years to to run a state and to show that they're capable of running a state and training law and order and the singularly failed in this list say that i have also read carefully big modest report and it is not directed at all binion's either of course so well being young or old binion's you know binya it is directed against the leadership against the. supporters i also have to. make another point here it is also very important dick marty has relatively narrow limits here he has concentrated on organ trafficking there are a great many others i think let me jump in if i can exact exactly what you are saying is true that was his mandate but in his report he starts talking about the

human trafficking allegedly only after article one hundred thirty six if you look carefully and from one article one and two one hundred thirty six it talks about the criminal albanian mafia about the. criminal state of course about the kelly trying to throw mud on the kalayaan what they did in that in their world and we were there independently he he has me see was the mandate according clearly read them if you read the report with this perspective to see original many of the music of the nine gentlemen that he has to let me jump in here and when we were running out of time i want to give allen the last word go ahead. well i mean as i say i think what we need to do is we need to figure out how to move forward and not only do we need to figure out how to get cost of zero to have the rule of law we have to figure out how to get cost of zero into the e.u. we have to figure out how to get cost of all recognized by more than by by most of the international community and it still isn't and if i could just raise that point we also have another state with ambiguous recognition and that's the the two states

in georgia south of said. you know you would like only go there if you. know but i don't know you see i really do you know it seems grandiose with rule of law everywhere and also and all the countries of the world agreeing on the sovereignty of states because if we have the same unit sovereignty we really have a potential kaz's bell ok ok alan i can always count on you and on a positive note and on a positive note many thanks to my guest today in new york and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember crosstalk .

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video. and r.s.s. feeds with the palm of your. on the dot com. we are hours away from the world that will decide the fate of the landmark pretty between russia and the united states i'm going to check out in a way that plays more details from washington d.c. in just a few moments. russia's best known spy from fatah and the chairman the lens a supporter of russia's young political aspirants we'll bring you all the details in just a few minutes. but also in the program media reports suggest the u.s. is planning a military push from afghanistan into pakistan despite intense opposition from islamabad we report.

this is our kevin i mean war welcome if you're just joining us our top story an eight pm from moscow the new atomic arms reduction treaty between moscow and washington is due to be approved by the u.s. senate wednesday after securing anough votes to close the debate in a very major political victory for president obama who's been pushing hard against strong republican opposition parties got a future cans in d.c. even across developments for us for our sake even to now the senate session is underway when are we likely to expect a result crucially. well kevin they really can't stall it any longer according to the senate rules by the end of wednesday they just have to vote that's what they agreed on yesterday the past six days of debate or just the marathon a number of republicans were just.