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The United Kingdom confirms its commitment to stability in the Western Balkans
2025-10-09 19:30:30 / POLITIKË
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has confirmed the United Kingdom's commitment to stability in the Western Balkans at a high-level summit in Northern Ireland.
She welcomed Foreign Ministers from across the region, including North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo, as well as European allies such as France, Austria, Greece and Italy, to Hillsborough Castle.
At the start of the talks, Cooper and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul welcomed the news released overnight regarding the first phase of a peace plan in Gaza.
Gathered together inside the castle, Cooper hailed the site as a symbol of peace, progress and reconciliation following Northern Ireland's historic peace process in the late 1990s.
She said the UK has a "long and enduring commitment to stability, security and prosperity in the Western Balkans".
"We know that security in the Western Balkans affects the security of all of Europe and our security here in the United Kingdom," she said.
"And it is a real honour to chair the Berlin Process Foreign Ministers' meeting this year and to be able to host this meeting here in Northern Ireland in such a historic place," she stressed.
Cooper referred to "rich discussions" the night before about the experiences of Northern Ireland, almost three decades after the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
She noted that it was also 30 years since the Dayton Agreement, in 1995, which ended the war in Bosnia, and the gathering at Hillsborough Castle served as “a symbol of peace, progress and reconciliation.”
Ahead of the summit, the United Kingdom pledged funding to strengthen border security and law enforcement training in Kosovo, as well as support to strengthen cyber defenses against the threat of Russian interference in the region.
Cooper also announced investments for schemes aimed at combating people smuggling in the Western Balkans and other key regions.
The Western Balkans are a major transit route through which migrants travel to the European Union and the United Kingdom, accounting for almost 22,000 irregular border crossings into the continent recorded last year, according to the British Foreign Office.
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