17/12/2004
Balkan Leaders Pledge To Turn Away From Past Conflicts

In a historic declaration the leaders of six countries in South Eastern Europe, have pledged this week to turn their backs on the past and look forward to a new culture of dialogue. Meeting in Tirana, Albania, under United Nations auspices, the leaders of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro reaffirmed that mutual respect, rooted in open dialogue and nourished by multi-ethnicity, multi-culturality and multi-religiosity was indispensable for the preservation of peace.

The region has seen some of the bitterest religious and ethnic fighting on the European continent since the Second World War. With peace and stability slowly becoming the norm, the Tirana summit was organised on the initiative of the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koïchiro Matsuura, and Albanian President Alfred
Moisiu.

“Everywhere, inter-religious and inter-ethnic dialogue represents a significant feature of social cohesion and stability,” Mr. Matsuura said in his opening address to the summit. “In south east Europe, such dialogue carries particular importance both historically and in current political
contexts.”

Over the past decade the region has been the scene of vicious fighting, massacres and ethnic cleansing between Serbs, Croats, Albanians, Christians and Muslims in the states and provinces of the former Yugoslavia.