Blakaj: Without political will, establishing the Joint Commission for Missing Persons means nothing

The Executive Director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo, Bekim Blakaj, welcomed the establishment of the Joint Commission, which, with EU mediation, is set to begin implementing the Declaration on Missing Persons. However, he cautions that without political will, this will not be possible.

"We waited more than a year and a half for the establishment of the Joint Commission since the joint statement by the President of Serbia and the Prime Minister of Kosovo in Ohrid in May 2023. At that time, the parties agreed to establish a Joint Commission led by someone from the European Union. However, it took over a year for this to happen," Blakaj told Kosovo Online.

He hopes the new commission will produce tangible results but reminds that this is not the first mixed group from Pristina and Belgrade, and results have always been lacking.

"Of course, we hope that this commission will achieve concrete results when it comes to missing persons, but we cannot be overly optimistic. In the past, there were working groups, including a joint working group. They did meet frequently in the past, but even then, we did not see results. So, merely establishing the Commission, on its own, means nothing without genuine political will to truly clarify the fate of the missing. And unless the issue of missing persons begins to be viewed as a humanitarian issue, nothing will change. Unfortunately, this has not been the case so far. Almost always, the issue of missing persons has been treated as a political matter, and the process of searching for the missing has very often been interrupted due to political statements, reactions, and demands," Blakaj concluded.