Kosovo Parliament Speaker in Visit to Bulgaria

Bulgaria’s Parliament has established formal relations with the Assembly of Kosovo after the head of the latter visited Sofia on Wednesday, Novinite reports.

The Chair of the Kosovo Assembly, Jakup Krasniqi, met with his Bulgarian counterpart, Tsetska Tsacheva, during an official visit abroad by a Kosovo parliamentary delegation.

“We hope that Bulgaria will liberalise its regime for Kosovo citizens. Our aim is the integration of our country with Europe because we have adopted EU values. Kosovo has a lot to offer to Europe. We are going to offer it our own values and young population,” Krasniqi said in the Bulgarian parliament.

“We have set the start of the official contacts between the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo. On behalf of Bulgaria, I have expressed our support for the development of Kosovo as a multiethnic secular state, which has been guaranteed by its new constitution,” explained Bulgarian Parliament Chair Tsacheva, who has accepted an invitation to return the visit.

Krasniqi made clear that the visit of the Kosovo delegation to Bulgaria is of special importance because it is the first official visit abroad by members of the Kosovo Parliament.

The Kosovo parliament speaker thanked the Bulgarian state and people for the support they have lent to the people of Kosovo during the turbulent developments in the country.

He also extended his country’s gratitude for the fact that the Bulgarian representative at the International Court of Justice in the Hague defended Kosovo’s independence with respect to Serbia’s lawsuit questioning the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 18, 2008.

Krasniqi expressed his conviction that the decision of the ICJ will be in favor of his country’s independence, in his own words, “because the state has to express the will of the people who live there.”