Kosovo will boycott the ceremony where Austrian writer Peter Handke will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Albanians in Kosovo and elsewhere, along with people from all over the world consider Handke a genocide denier, and have criticized the Swedish Academy for the award.
Today, Kosovo foreign minister Behgjet Pacolli wrote on social media that their ambassador in Sweden will boycott the ceremony: “the reason being the controversial Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke, a friend and supporter of [Slodoban] Milosevic’s policies.”
Pacolli also called on Albania to boycott the ceremony.
Handke is known for his friendship with ‘The Butcher of the Balkans’, Slobodan Milosevic, and for denying the massacre at Srebrenica at the hands of the Serb Army of Republika Serbska, who killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys under the command of war criminal Radko Mladic.
Handke delivered the eulogy at Milosevic’s funeral, who died whilst he was being tried at the UN War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague for genocide and other war crimes committed during the early 1990s.
The announcement of Handke’s award sparked widespread outrage among Bosniaks, Albanians, other nations affected by Milosevic’s brutal wars, as well as international witnesses.
Prime Minister Edi Rama even wrote an op-ed on Politico to condemn the award.
The Nobel Prize Award ceremony is held in Sweden on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
