WASHINGTON, June 22 (UPI) -- Kosovo Assembly Speaker Nexhat Daci, on a visit to Washington, said Tuesday that the U.N. mission to Kosovo is failing in its administrative role.
"The U.N. mission is failing, and the price is paid by Kosovars," Daci said at a forum organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center.
According to Daci, the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo should be restricted to advising and monitoring the small Balkan country, and that the authority of the Kosovar government should expand.
He added that his government had to accept some of the blame for poor management of the country's economy.
"Kosovo, a small country, a poor country, has a surplus of hundreds of millions of euros," he said. "It shows we don't know how to run a country. We don't have projects. We don't know how to spend money."
Under current rules, Kosovo's budget has to be approved by the United Nations. The total budget for 2004 is 632 million euros.
Daci said full independence remains on the country's agenda, but that will not happen before all parties come together with the international community.
"We would like it to happen democratically," he said. "We are not postponing it forever, that's for sure."
