Kosovo: NATO commander denies love affair with an ethnic Albanian woman

Belgrade, 12 August (AKI) – The head of NATO-led forces in Kosovo, German general Erhard Buehler, on Friday denied he had a love affair with an ethnic Albanian woman, reports of which had sparked political row in Pristina and Belgrade.

After several days of silence, Buehler on Friday denied the media reports in an interview with Belgrade daily Alo.

“I’m not involved with a young Albanian,” he said.

His comments came after Pristina television channel Klan Kosova claimed that 55-year-old Buehler was romantically involved with a young ethnic Albanian woman who he was to marry and take home to Germany when his mandate ends in September.

Serbian media accused Buehler of siding with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and claimed his his romantic involvement made him unfit for his role there. Some reports even claimed that Buehler’s father served with Nazi forces in Kosovo during World War II.

Buehler's alleged bride-to-be was the sister of Kosovo's prime minister Hashim Thaci’s wife, said some of the reports, which Buehler rejected in the Alo interview.

“My partner lives in Germany and has no connections to Hashim Thaci,” Buehler said.

The woman, with whom he has lived for years, has is quite open about her ties to Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, Buehler claimed.

“Everything that has been written for days is a dirty campaign aimed at discrediting me as mediator and negotiator,” Buehler explained.

His father, born in 1932, was a child during the Second World War meaning he could not have served with Nazi forces and committed crimes, Buehler said.

Buhler brokered a tempory accord that eased tensions that erupted in northern Kosovo in recent weeks after local Serbs set up road blocks in protest at Thaci's despatch of special police to man two border crossings amid a trade dispute with Belgrade.

One Kosovo policemen was killed in clashes at the Jarinje and Brnjak crossings .

Kosovo Albanians declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade has continued to oppose the move. Serbs, who form the majority of the population in the north, don’t recognise Pristina’s authority there.