President of the Republic of Kosovo Viosa Osmani-Sadriu posthumously awarded the presidential medal to Bo Biden, son of US President Joseph Biden, who died in 2015. This gesture is gratitude for his work in Kosovo after the war, writes Reuters.
The son of the current head of the United States was a prosecutor and participated in an American program to train prosecutors in the unrecognized republic shortly after the end of the 1998-1999 war. “What the United States and the American people have done for our country, for our freedom, for our right to exist, goes beyond any partnership among all countries in the world,” Osmani said.
After her words, the ceremony in Pristina included a speech of gratitude by the American president, pre-recorded on video. Biden stated that his son was in love with Kosovo and therefore worked for the good of the region sincerely and with all his heart. In 2016, after the death of his son, a memorial in memory of Bo Biden was opened in Kosovo and the road that previously led to the American military base was named after him.
The Biden Memorial is not the only monument to an American leader on Kosovo soil. In 2009, a bronze statue was erected in Pristina to Bill Clinton, the American president who organized the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999.
The Republic of Kosovo is a partially recognized state on the Balkan Peninsula. It is mainly inhabited by ethnic Albanians, but there is also a Serb population. Serbia considers the autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija – as the region is called in the Serbian constitution – as part of its territory, and Kosovo Serbs report harassment from the ethnic majority.
According to the latest data, the republic after its declaration of independence in 2008 was recognized by about a hundred countries, including 22 of the 27 member states of the European Union, but Kosovo is not a member of the UN. Russia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo.
