UNITED NATIONS, July 14: Ban Ki-Moon will become the first UN leader to visit Kosovo since its declaration of independence when he tours Balkan countries after an urgent visit to China next week.
Ban will leave for China on Monday to attend a ministerial China-Africa forum in Beijing and to hold talks with China’s “leadership,” according to a statement by spokesman Martin Nesirky.
The UN secretary-general is expected to discuss Syria with Chinese leaders, diplomats said. China has been backing Russia in rejecting a western UN Security Council resolution that would impose sanctions on Syria.
He will arrive in Slovenia on Thursday for a week-long Balkans tour that will also take him to Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, the former Serbian province of Kosovo and Bosnia, where he will go to Srebrenica.
Ban is expected to discuss Kosovo in talks with President Tomislav Nikolic in Belgrade. Serbia refuses to recognise the independence of Kosovo, which has secured recognition from about 90 countries including the United States and most of the European Union.
Kosovo accuses Belgrade of encouraging the 120,000 ethnic Serbs still in Kosovo to defy the government, and tensions remain particularly high around the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica.
Ban will be the first UN leader to visit Kosovo since its 2008 declaration of independence. Former leader Kofi Annan went there after the NATO-led campaign that ended the 1998-1999 conflict between Serb forces and pro-independence ethnic Albanians.
Ban will visit the UN mission in Pristina and hold talks with international officials and Kosovo authorities.
From Kosovo, he will go to Bosnia, including a visit to Srebrenica, where UN forces came in for bitter criticism over their failure to prevent the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by pro-Serb forces.
July 11 was the 17th anniversary of the massacre. Ban will visit a memorial in the city. (Agencies)
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