Kosovo and Croatia strongly commit to increasing cooperation and partnership

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In the meeting which Minister Hoxhaj held with the Croatian delegation, led by Nebojša Koharovic, Director General of Bilateral Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia, they discussed deepening political, economic, social and educational cooperation between the two states.

Hoxhaj informed the Croat delegation about the continual progress which is being reached in the Republic of Kosovo, emphasizing the hard work being done on Kosovo’s integration in the European Union.

In this regard, Hoxhaj expressed the will of the Kosovo Government to benefit from Croatia’s successful experience in integration.

The leader of the Croat delegation, Nebojša Koharovic and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo, Ibrahim Gashi, gave a press statement.

Koharovic expressed the full support of the Republic of Croatia not just for Kosovo’s independence, but for all other processes relating to strengthening Kosovo’s statehood.

He emphasized the full readiness of Croatia to support Kosovo in integration processes in the European Union and in NATO.

“We, the Government of Croatia, strongly support Kosovo in these two integration processes because not only does Kosovo merit this from the dimension and stage of reforms it has undertaken during the four years since independence, but also because as a state it is an inevitable part of all types of stabilization processes in our region”, said Koharovic.

He also concluded that Kosovo today is definitely one of Croatia’s partners in the region, while emphasizing the importance of further deepening political and economic bilateral relations between the two states and social relations between citizens of the two countries.

Koharovic emphasized the strong links which exist between the two states, but also our nations, from the past together in a former shared state, and concluded that this traditional friendship will continue to deepen further, including the addressing of the question of our national minorities, Albanians who live in Croatia, and Croats who live in Kosovo.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo, Ibrahim Gashi said that the visit of the Croat delegation in Kosovo was a working visit and that during these consultative meetings they would assess the level of cooperation between our two countries.

“The Republic of Kosovo is very interested to deepen cooperation, to increase the number of bilateral agreements between our two states and to benefit from Croatia’s experience of state-building and above all, from Croat experience in European integration, which Croatia has completed very successfully and is now in the final state of membership”, said Gashi, adding that Croatia’s experience is valuable not just for Kosovo, but for all countries in the region.

Deputy Minister Gashi thanked Mr. Koharovic and his accompanying delegation for their readiness to start this series of consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries, in order to deepen comprehensive cooperation.