Journalists accredited to the government of Kosovo boycotted on Wednesday the press conference of the Minister of Finance, Labor and Transfers, Hekuran Murati, because of, as they said, the usual delays of government ministers.

Even though the spokesperson of the government Perparim Kryeziu has invited the journalists to return to the conference, all the journalists have not agreed to return, because most of the journalists have already left the government building.

Kryeziu later went on to explain the reasons for the delay: “We regret what happened today. The delays in starting the press conference were reasonable since after the end of the government meeting there was an internal meeting of the government cabinet. The holding of the conference after the government meeting was announced in advance. With all the consideration for the media workers who were present in the government building, I strongly believe that this situation could have been avoided”, he wrote. According to him, there was no media conference today because, as he said, the public interest was not put first.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo however said that “AJK supports the journalist colleagues for today’s action since this is not the first time that the government delays the conferences without any explanation” it is stated in their announcement.

“AJK also asks the government to respect the work of journalists by organizing press conferences, at a reasonable time after the end of the meetings. The government must put the public interest first, accepting questions from journalists about the decisions it makes,” AJK responded.