Kosovo Commission Calls Montenegro Border Deal Damaging

Kosovo's government on Monday backed a report by a new commission tasked with re- assessing the controversial border deal with Montenegro - which has called the deal damaging to Kosovo's national interests.

Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, a fierce critic of the border deal in opposition, wasted no time on his first day in office before firing the existing State Commission on Demarcation and appointing another team, in charge of finding a solution to the deadlock.

Reporting to the government on Monday, the head of the new commission, Shpejtim Bulliqi, said the deal was indeed damaging to Kosovo.

"Our commission unanimously concluded that border line with Montenegro is not in line with the former Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo boundary line," Bulliqi said, referring to the old internal boundaries of the Yugoslav federation.

A MP from the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, which led the last government, Bulliqi has long maintained that the old commission, formerly headed by Murat Meha, made key errors in the agreement with Montenegro, which cost Kosovo over 8,200 hectares of land.

He said that his commission had faced "political and media pressure" over the work assigned to it three months ago.

The commission report also reflected the different views that Haradinaj's cabinet have on this topic, however.

Deputy Prime Minister Enver Hoxhaj, who comes from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, a party in government that supports the deal, said he was not convinced with Bulliqi's findings.

"I am hearing general assessments but not any concrete fact. You were not concrete. When topics are complex, commissions are obliged to simplify them. I have the impression that you have complicated it [demarcation] even more,"...

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