YouSaid · the spoken record

Albin Kurti

lines on the record: 51
first: 2024-03-18
most recent: 2024-03-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Not this time. Support Joe You know, it goes without saying in terms that I'm a social democrat. I work very much with the democratic party of US, with NDI in Kosovo. But then again, not only with US, but also within EU. I have to meet so many presidents and prime ministers who are from right-wing parties, center-right and right-wing parties. Northern Ireland and”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Read that right, I mean, you must have a, you've just been talking about the Vision of Kosovo being part of NATO Of the big implications of Trump beating Biden again is the future of NATO. We have already fulfilled 2% criteria I have doubled support for military in Kosovo in terms of military equipment and also trainings. And we have, for example, cadets in Sanhurst Academy here. And in this respect, the critique of former President Trump was not in relation to Kosovo, but to some other European countries.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Prior to last elections in the US, I publicly supported President Joe Biden. I think that on one level, whoever wins in US, Kosovo will continue to be independent sovereign democratic republic in the eyes of Washington, D.C. However, things are changing fast and people are worried. In the case of next elections, it's difficult to predict now. However, I believe that Kosovo and US will continue to have excellent relations. We have them as indispensable lie in terms of defending and securing our country. And maybe we spent a bit too much time in thinking who's going to win in US, bearing in mind a quote by famous American filmmaker. David Lynch on President Trump. He said something to paraphrase him as follows You cannot combat him in an intelligent way. So basically you may spend a lot of time in thinking which will not pay back.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“final question relates to the American presidential elect Mentioned that you've had words with Anthony Blinken. Really add words with the whole Trump administrat So All the things that we've been talking about What is the implication for them of either a Biden or Second term or a Trump second term winning the election in November.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When US intervened in Iraq, I remember very well some of the Serbian media writing that if US goes after Iran, that will be our historical window of opportunity to go back to Kosovo. Now, recently, President of Serbia has been quoting President Aliyev in Azerbaijan that they have been waiting for 27 years to do what they've done So, my question is should we count 27 years from 1999, which makes 2026 a dangerous year for us, or should we count from now? So in 2050, new attack of Serbia, we could be quite relaxed. I think this idea of waiting historical window of opportunity is a very problematic thing for security architecture of the Balkans. And here I think we can be saved by building our own capabilities and capacities, but also by joining NATO. Joining NATO and EU is also a security thing now, not just a matter of citizens' well-being.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Serb dominated, and it's like open Balkans, open to whom, to do what? You know, it's like open to Russian Federation because Serbia has great relations with both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. So if you enter with Serbia with the idea of open Balkans, Serbia being open to Russia and China, that's not okay”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we're both social Democrats. We agree on so many issues most of the time. But then when we disagree, that makes news. We do not agree regarding open Balkans. In my view, we need European Balkans. European Balkans is open enough, whereas open Balkans is not European enough.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You join European Union in order to also contribute, not benefit. So I think that we have to prepare to contribute. This is very important. European Union should be homegrown yet not self-made. We need help, but it should be built within each country. And to that end, I think that the values of European Union are very important. Market economy, qualitative education, human rights minority rights, fight against corruption, good neighborly relations, and so on and so forth. So I think that, yes, values and interests are not the same thing, but they cannot be decoupled. So it is very important to have these values being built within our system and society, and in particular, efficient professional administration.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but one of the reasons why it is not going to happen soon is because the support for EU in Serbia fell to 35%. 20 years ago, when Zoran Jin ⁇ was alive as Prime Minister of Serbia, student of J ⁇ rgen Habermas, Western oriented, then support for EU was 75%. Now it fell to 35%. EU cannot impose inclusion of your country. So both Russian Federation and European Union have history of enlargement. But European Union enlarges peacefully and Russian Federation violently. So you cannot join into EU if you don't want to join into EU. So there are needed democratic changes in Serbia. That's why I think that groundbreaking moment is Russian aggression in Ukraine because the key values of also identity building are the values, the foundational Values of Council of Europe, namely democracy, rule of law, and human rights.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think one of the measurements would be whether your nationalistic attitude is for liberation towards equality with other nations, or you want territorial expansion, hegemonian domination over others. So you have to justify your nationalism in terms of liberation, because we can say that Charles de Gaulle, Franz Fanon, and Marie Le Pen, they are both nationalists. But if you put them in the same basket, you couldn't make a bigger mistake. So I think that we have to see it in terms of national liberation struggle and for the sake of equality in order to listen to the legitimization narrative of that nationalism.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the analogy wouldn't stand because Republica Srpska is the creation of genocide of Srebrenica. So the Bosniaks, the Muslims, did not go back to the places where they would have been expelled. So Republika Srpska came out of Dayton, whereas Kosovo was constitutive part of former Federation of Yugoslavia. We declared independence in coordination with Western partners and for the first four years it was supervised independence. In 2010, July 2010, International Court of Justice ruled that Declaration of Independence of Kosovo did not violate international law.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't want to exclude that, but I won as Prime Minister on a ticket of jobs and justice. And to be honest, that's what I do best.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but we need self-determination towards strengthening both European Union and NATO. So, in this double capital called Brussels, I see the solution.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Albania are two different states, but not two different nations. For example, sometimes you have much more differences among Albanians within Albania or within Kosovo than between Kosovo and Albania. There has been this London conference in 1913 which has divided Albanians. And back then, Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Gray said we did the great injustice to Albania in order to preserve European peace. And one year after we get the First World War, so much of European peace. So for historical reasons, there is a certain trauma in us being divided. However, now, especially after Russian invasion in Ukraine, we see that nation states are not self-sustainable. They are not self-sufficient.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, many left, but vast majority of them together with Serbian police and army in summer 1999. I am Prime Minister of Serbs as well. They have 10 reserve seats in our parliament out of 120. Serbian language is official language all over Kosovo at every level of administration. Deputy Ombudsperson of Kosovo is a Serb. I appoint Serbs in board of directors in publicly owned enterprises. So we cooperate well, but precisely this success is increasing tensions caused by Belgrade, who is very worried that we're having success in integrating Serbs.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If the source of tension would have been on the ground from below, I wouldn't have been this optimistic. All of the tension that we have in Kosovo is because of the autocrat in Belgrade, and he is nervous and in panic precisely because Serbian Kosovo they want to integrate, because they see how they benefit from integration. And they are not 40% of population, not 14% of population, 4% of population.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I'm looking very much to go to Belfast. I've never been there, and I want to see myself especially situation in two accounts. First is a joint community police, and second is shared education. In Kosovo, we don't have ethnic divisions, we have language barrier. I believe in multilinguisticism. I think that human beings are not meant to speak only one language or to live only in one place throughout their lives. So basically we're going to move back and forth like our diaspora does, which is one-third of our population. And we're going to learn several languages. So I just want to see myself reading few books listening in a way I want to see myself how the situation is on the ground. But this has nothing to do with Dinar. And Central Bank of Kosovo already outlined a 10-step plan for smooth transition within the three-month period.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of sending those dinners to new bank accounts and to exchange them for euros. As we speak today, Euro is used in all the shops in four northern municipalities without any problems, precisely because the preparation was going on smoothly on the ground, Vucic interfered because he saw the success. So it's not that failure on the ground caused his reaction on the contrary.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, this is a decision of central bank of Kosovo as a new regulation adopted on 27th of December last year. I had no idea that this regulation will be taken. However, I fully support it. Because it is directed against illicit activities, financing terrorism and formalizing what is written in our Constitution, namely that the only currency as means of payment is euro. We did not ban dinar as such. You can own dinars and pounds and Swiss francs and dollars, but you cannot use them as means of payment according to our constitution. And 33,000 elderly Serbs who have been retired in recent years are taking pensions also from the Kosovar system in bank accounts, in commercial banks of Kosovo. 10 of them all together, eight foreign banks to Kosovar. So they can have bank accounts. So what we're asking from Serbia, because our central bank wrote a letter to People's Bank of Serbia to find a smooth way”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When Albanians were expelled in spring 1999, there was this horseshoe operation. Now horseshoe exists, but it's just outside, of Kosovo, in the form of 48 forward operating bases. 28 are military, 20 are Gendarmeria. And these people are in high alert. It took no other than Mr. Jake Sullivan to come out and publicly warn Vucis to withdraw these thousands of troops and modern technology that they've got from China and Russia in order to have Belgrade stepping back and withdrawing from the vicinity of our border. For example, they have Russian airplanes MiG-29, Chinese system FK3, and Chinese drones CH-92A. All of this at the vicinity of our border. But thanks to Mr. Jake Sullivan, Belgrade backtop.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And In the past, they wanted Hall of Kosovo. There are people who still want that. But in terms of their actions, they would like partitioning Kosovo and taking the northern part of Kosovo. And there are still many daydreaming in Belgrade about that. You know, fantasy is not reality, but influences reality.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is a big similarity between implosion of Soviet Union and Yugoslav Federation. Implosion of Soviet Union brought Russian Federation with tentacles in the form of satellite parastates, Belarus, Crimea, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and so on and so forth. Disintegration of former Yugoslavia brought a small quadrupus, not big octopus, but small quadripus. And Republika Srpska is one of the key tentacles of Belgrade.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I cannot remember who I fear most, but I love most Republic of Kosovo. Our Albanian nation and especially Brussels has a double capital, and Washington, D.C. and London, where we are now.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But let us not forget Alistair that both his fear and love are towards Moscow way more than towards Brussels and Washington, D.C. So in politics, when you have so much power, it depends so much on who do you love most and who do you fear most.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. So Autocracies, there is a certain magnetism, a certain attraction that one person decides it all. And foreign policy and autocracy is like children's bicycle, can be turned the other way in any minute. So I'm going to go and talk to him. I'm going to change his mind. So I think this attraction is a trap.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't think so. It could be, it's not me to say. I believe that this kind of situation also says something about Western diplomacy as well. I think that after Russian invasion in Ukraine, Belgrade, not only President Butic, they saw that there are two dominant types of diplomats in the West. Those who will seek appeasement out of fear And those who are going to be utopian thinking that precisely with Vucic, you're going to bring Serbia into Western camp. Because when you have an autocracy,”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's more like a guiding principle. I wouldn't put red lines. And second is, for me, it's very important during negotiations and deal making in general and not necessarily only with international counterparts, but also in everyday politics and governance to its microphysics of different agencies and ministries is make sure that even if you do a compromise in your let's say actuality of current state of affairs not to reflect it in your potentiality Potentiality in what you can achieve. So for me, I can get, how should I say, smaller at present with the certain idea that I can still grow fast and big in the future.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've done compromises, but they are forgotten, and they are shadowed by my insistence and consistence. So if you unfold what I've been through, you see a lot of compromises. However, if there are two principles in compromise making that I was trying to stay true to are number one, I think it was Gandhi who said no compromise in the center, which means that you do compromises, but not in the center, which means that you define what is center, but you don't tell your opponents what is center for you. So in a way, no compromise in the center.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Words that you use just like actions that you insist in. However, you know, we cannot change past. We can learn lessons. And perhaps one of my flaws in this political activism has been that I've kept diary of my thinking more than of my experience. And if I would have kept diary of my experience, perhaps I could do better and more for others and improving myself.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All my political activism has been marked by idealism on one level, and on another level by consistency and insistence as much as I could do according to my abilities and knowledge. The expressions of these sometimes were a bit too much, sometimes I overdid. My insistence and consistency.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is incredible individual strength. And he didn't want to join others who are working from exile. He wanted to give an example, to give courage to people who are suppressed inside Russian Federation, so it is possible to have a call for freedom also inside be that even in prison. I think that was his goal to make a contrast of only exile as possibility for resistance. He wanted to do it inside Russian Federation, and I think that he succeeded. The name of Alexander Navalny will be the organizing nomos of resistance in Russian Federation that is like having more than seeds now. I think it will bloom in near to Midterm future”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was in my mid twenties, and that was possible. And sometimes there were so many Albanian political prisoners and war prisoners. They were beating all of us, not only me. I was not that specific like Navalny. You had thousands of Albanians there. I was a bit more prominent, but nonetheless there were other people who were very prominent as well. So perhaps to survive, you get a bit of luck as well. So I've seen people. Dying after five minutes of beatings, and I've seen people, including myself, who has beaten so many times and still come out alive. This is not in our hands.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think that just like everyone else, I was also thinking that, of course, Putin himself ordered this murder, not just that his regime killed him. So I think that Putin knew the day, perhaps even the hour when he will be killed, because he's that kind of dictator, a dictator that micromanages into operation. It's not anymore strategy and beliefs he's done with us. But in case of me in Serbian prison, I lost consciousness over 40 times during torture and so on. I have no chance to even imagine that I would come out alive with today's body and age. I was young.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I was staying in prison only 10% of Adam de Mausi and Mandela. So I think here volume matters. So I will not be able to say anything in that regard. However, in prison, you have small space and a lot of time. That is a place to really read without distractions and no mobile phones, no drinking. And I think that I made a use of it. But at the same time, being urban middle class person, I was hanging around in prison mainly with people who were coming from the villages. And that was indispensable to my ability to organize people when I come out. So, when I came out, I managed to create this organization precisely because I knew how to talk and how to relate to people who were coming from the villages.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was just thinking that I have to make a plan for many years ahead to learn some foreign language I was hoping in the prison in Pojrevat I found a book in Italian so I was thinking to learn Italian in prison because that was the only book available there and later on they started to give me books but mainly Russian authors because they wanted to humiliate me so I read all of Dostoevsky and Pushkin in prison”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the beginning, yes, but I was arrested during NATO Bombardment. So then information was not the most important thing anymore. It was more just like hatred, indignation, and saying now you are going to pay for what NATO is doing to us without thinking what they did so NATO had to bomb them.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I can say how it is in prison when I got imprisoned by United Nations mission in Kosovo and EULEX and Kosovar police, but during Serbia it was like a concentration camp. It was not a prison. I lost 30 kilograms in 1999. And there were like systematic tortures, sometimes several times per day.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I spent altogether two years and seven months in prison one year and five months during Milosevic and one year and two months during Koshtunica who came after Milosevic.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On one level there was nothing extraordinary. Albanians since the end of Second World War, Albanian political prisoners spent altogether almost seven hundred centuries of imprisonment under Yugoslavia and Serbia. So I was just more of the same. On another level, it was very extraordinary experience for me because I was not typical political prisoner. I was rather a war prisoner. On 10th of June 1999, when Serbia was withdrawing its police and military forces in a convoy, they have put red buses with Albanian war prisoners in between, so NATO wouldn't bomb them and they used us as a shield. I was transferred to prison in Pozhrewats from prison in Lipian in Kosovo, and Pojrevaz being the hometown of Milosuvis.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, I don't mind critique. I'm intellectually a child of critical theory from, let's say, Jean-Jacques Crousau to Frankfurt School, so critique is healthy. I believe that there's no progress without critique. We might disagree, but European Union, United States of America, and UK are our allies, friends, and partners. This does not mean that our cooperation is a one-way street. So we have to listen to each other. And in this sense, I believe that I have to defend Kosovo. I have to represent it better than our allies even. I wouldn't be a prime minister if Kosovo wouldn't be a republic. And it's not just partly recognized as 117 countries throughout the world, 22 out of 27 in the EU, 26 out of 13 NATO, and Kosovo being a landlocked country, won the bid for meditation. Games 2030 together with Duros in Albania.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Self determination is a principle of collective freedom of people, is a democratic thing, which means that comes from below, not from above. Because we have heard sayings from Kremlin that in Crimea there was a referendum, there was a self-determination, but we have seen Russian soldiers carrying out ballot boxes. So self-determination is not something which comes from above, but from below. And in this sense, I believe is one of the main driving forces for freedom of people in 20th century, and it might continue in the century as well.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I always considered myself a political activist, so I never thought that I would ever become Member of Parliament, let alone Prime Minister. So these are all consequences of my actions and circumstances, but never my goal.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I got politically active in Students' Union back then with protests and demonstrations, very soon it became clear that Kosovo did not save itself from the war with, let's say, peaceful passive resistance. War is unavoidable with Milosevic. And back then, in 1998, I joined Adam Democi, who was like Armandela. He was 28 years in prison. And he was the political representative of Kosovo Liberation Army. I worked as his secretary, translator, assistant. I was his closest person in Kosovo Liberation Army in Pristina.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Definitely, just like Milosvich believed that, for example, Yugoslavia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are artificial states. Likewise today, despotic President Putin believes that Ukraine is an artificial state. So he goes for the natural dismantling of something which he considers artificial. On the other hand, The idea of revisionism and nostalgia for Golden Age, Peter the Great in 18th century also is an echo of Milosevic recalling Greater Serbia in medieval times. But these are just narrative tools for hegemony of discourse and for mobilization of police and military.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When they started colonization of Yugoslavia with Serbs, they used to say whatever a Serb lives there is Serbia. That was a century ago. By the end of 20th century, they started to say wherever there is a Serbian grave, there is Yugoslavia. And that was a hint that basically they're going to die for what they believe, even though that's Chauvinistic, nationalistic, and so on and so forth. So Milosevic's speeches and what we have seen on the ground, for example, expulsion of Albanians from hospitals, from factories, from schools and university, made it clear that they don't want us there. They want our land without us.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that the Belgrade political elite had long time ago a plan how to dominate and centralize Yugoslavia. But of course with the death of Tito they accelerated that plan and they started by abolishment of the autonomy of Kosovo which was not a republic but yet a constitutive element of former Federation of Yugoslavia. And then they were hoping that by destroying Yugoslavia, they're going to get at least half of it. And Kosovo would be included there for sure. So they didn't hesitate to do ethnic cleansing and genocide, as we know.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As I said, I was very much into thinking. I loved ideas and thinking, but about hiding jail apart during the 90s when I was student of electrotechnics. Doing hard science became a bit absurd and futile due to repression of Milosevic's regime. So you can do some very complicated problem solving in maths, informal mathematics, but nonetheless, when you go out from your apartment, you have a policeman who is arrogant and violent towards you. So I started to get organized with others. So the social aspect of life Was in stark contradiction with my thinking as a student”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Albanians were vast majority in Kosovo throughout the 20th century. Nowadays, Albanians are 93%. Serbs are 4%. But Serbs used to be around 10% in the 20th century. And there was not much of ethnic division or language barrier as much as hegemony from Belgrade, which wanted to instrumentalize differences in order to dominate over former Yugoslavia. So I believe that former Yugoslavia was both created at the onset of 20th century and destroyed by the end of 20th century with the same goal, to create greater Serbia. And this has nothing to do with ethnicity.”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“1966 is a very decisive year because back then the most notorious Serbian politician in communist party of Yugoslavia Aleksandr Rankovic was purged in Bryone Plenum by Tito who was the undisputed leader of former Yugoslavia and bit by bit autonomy of Kosovo started to increase we got first university we got permission to use Albanian flag to learn and teach in our language”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I was very much into Russell Frege, Wittgenstein Cantor, and so on. And then I was more interested about the linguistic turn, you know, the late Wittgenstein in contrast to the early one and got in touch with the French philosophy of second half of 20th”
2024-03-18 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 65. Albin Kurti, Prime Minister of Kosovo: Vladimir Putin, surviving prison, and Serbia · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source