His Excellency Volodymyr Zelenskyy
President of Ukraine
Office of the President
Bankova Street 11, Kyiv 01220, Ukraine
Mr. President,
I write as a global citizen, and as a former Minister of Health of the Republic of Kosova, and Albanian- American, and I write this note with deep disappointment. On 8 August, standing shamelessly in Belgrade beside President Vucic, you declared that Ukraine does not recognize the independence of Kosova. Nearly 120 countries around the world have recognized the Republic of Kosova, among them twenty-two of the twenty-seven members of the European Union you seek to join and almost every member of the NATO alliance whose weapons defend your cities. You chose to say otherwise in Belgrade, from a podium shared with the one leader in Europe who has imposed not a single sanction on the government bombing your country. That was not a statement of principle. It was a script written in Moscow, and you read it aloud.
This is dangerous politics, and it is dangerous first of all for Ukraine. The states that deny our sovereignty are, almost without exception, the states that deny yours. Every argument used against Kosova has been used against you, by the same power, in the same words. When you lend that argument your voice in Belgrade, you do not weaken Ukraine aspiration. You do not weaken Kosova. You weaken the ground you are standing on.
Kosova joined the European and American sanctions against Russia when nothing obliged us to. We opened our homes to Ukrainian journalists and to Ukrainian families fleeing the war. We recognize Ukraine within all of its borders, Crimea included. As Minister of Health, I was proud to cast my vote in support of Ukraine, and I would cast it again tomorrow. We ask nothing from you that we have not already given.
We know what your people are enduring, because we endured it, at the hands of the same doctrine and in living memory. That is precisely why this hurst and has disappointed millions of people around the world and not just us Kosovars and our friends.
As a US-Albanian from Kosova, I visited to helped Ukraine, after the first invasion. I hope to see Ukraine free next visit, and a President of Ukraine who has guts and stands with Kosova. If you creating alliance with Vucic, trying to become friend with Putin, you have chosen a wrong path. Totally wrong.
With respect, and with continued solidarity for the people of Ukraine,
Rifat Latifi, MD, FACS, FICS, FKCS
Former Minister of Health, Republic of Kosova