World

Kosovo prime minister formally hands in resignation letter

25 of July 2019

AP Photo,FILE - In this Sunday, June 11, 2017 file photo, Ramush Haradinaj, candidate for Prime Minister, casts his ballot during the early parliamentary elections Pristina, Kosovo. Kosovo’s prime minister has resigned from the post after he has been invited to be questioned from a European Union-funded court investigating crimes against ethnic Serbs during and after the 1998-99 independence war with Serbia. Haradinaj said on Friday, July 19, 2019 he had informed the Cabinet of his resignation and urged the country’s president to set a date for an early parliamentary election. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu, file)

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s prime minister has formally handed in his resignation after being summoned for questioning by a Hague-based court investigating crimes against ethnic Serbs during and after the country’s 1998-99 war.

Ramush Haradinaj, 51, said Monday that he had submitted his resignation letter and urged the country’s president to call an early parliamentary election. He added that the outgoing Cabinet would act in a caretaker role.

Haradinaj, a former parliamentary speaker, a president’s adviser and other unnamed former top war commanders have been summoned by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and are expected to be questioned this week.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and a separate Specialist Prosecutor’s Office were established in 2015 based on war crimes allegations against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.