The Presidency of Kosovo has reacted again regarding the incident at Skopje Airport involving President Vjosa Osmani after the Civil Aviation Agency of North Macedonia stated that their report on the incident shows that airport services adhered to regulations.
However, the Presidency asserts that nowhere in the world is a head of state required to surrender their phone for scanning or even personal items. “Nowhere in the world is a head of state required to surrender their phone for scanning. In other countries, neither personal baggage nor the personal bag of a head of state is inspected, let alone their personal phone. As a Presidency, we have ample experience with other travels; we don’t need to test it, as nowhere, at no time, has the personal bag, personal luggage, or phone of a head of state been subjected to inspection. Among the dozens of countries we have visited to date, North Macedonia is the only country in the world that refuses to apply customary international law and international conventions relating to heads of state. As we have stated several times, the president placed her bag for inspection, and it passed through the scanner. Any other statement is political propaganda. There is nothing professional in the security behavior that confronts a head of state and blocks their movement after having placed their bag in the scanner. North Macedonia has violated international rules that are applied everywhere in the world by demanding the scanning of the phone of the President of another state, which could pose a potential threat to national security,” the statement reads.
The Presidency also mentioned that Osmani did not return to Kosovo via Skopje Airport, thus changing her travel itinerary, because her security team assessed that after the “sensational propaganda, the basic security conditions for such a thing did not exist.”
