Jan 17, 2020
Artan Duraku, Kosovo Minister Consular
Economic Development, Trade, Culuture & Education

Note:  Two Speakers will be presenting January 17th. 

Artan Duraku - Minister Consular of the Republic of Kosovo

Artan Duraku is a career diplomat with the rank of Minister Consular, of the Republic of Kosovo, as of April 2019 serving as head of the Mission of the Consulate of the Republic of Kosovo in Des Moines Iowa. 

Artan is Political Scientist and holds a BA in Political Science and MA in European Politics, European Defense and Security from University of Leeds in United Kingdom. 

During the service in the Kosovo Institution he served over 15 Years in different Institutions such as Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The last three years before moving to Iowa, he served as Head of Policy Planning Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.   Some of the key activities in the institutions are Strategic Planning, Security Sector Review, Counter Organized Crime, and Migration Management.  

Main objectives of the service in Iowa are related to economic development, trade, culture and education. Artan is married to Zamira Hyseni Duraku and they have a daughter Erika, 9 years old. 

Astrit Zema - Deputy General Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kosovo

Astrit Zemaj basic and postgraduate studies for management and economics as well as for international relations ended in Kosovo and Germany. In October 2009, he joined the diplomatic and consular service of the Republic of Kosovo and was appointed Consul of the Republic of Kosovo in Frankfurt (Germany). Under his leadership, in 2009, the first Consulate of the Republic of Kosovo in Frankfurt, in which he held the post of Chief Consular Mission, was established and consolidated successfully by November 2015. From November 2015, he was transferred at the Embassy of the Republic of Kosovo in Berlin, in the position of Deputy Ambassador.

In October 2012, Astrit Zemaj, Consul of the Republic of Kosovo in Frankfurt, was proclaimed Honorary Member of the International Diplomatic Board, acting within the framework of the German-Asian Economic Forum, based in Frankfurt.  In June of 2016, Astrit Zemaj, Ambassador of the Republic of Kosovo to Germany, held a lecture at the Academy for Diplomatic Culture - ICD in Berlin, on the theme: "Peacebuilding process, its preservation and advancement in the Balkans and the role of Kosovo".  In December 2017, he was appointed "Charges d'Affaires ad Interim" in charge of the Embassy of the Republic of Kosovo in Germany.

During the nineties, Astrit Zemaj was actively engaged in political and military processes for the freedom and independence of Kosovo. After the end of the war in Kosovo, Zemaj has participated in the training operations of US and NATO forces in the framework of peacekeeping missions for Kosovo. In 2013 he published the book titled "The Legitimacy of Military Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo". The book was promoted in New York and Frankfurt, and in 2014, by Monroe College in New York, USA was honored with the prestigious "Honor of the Moroe College" award.

While in 2017 he published the second book "Europe at the crossroads and the rise of the Third Reich in Germany, 1918-1939", which is a single study of this kind in Albanian about the situation in Germany from a political, diplomatic, military and economic, between the two world wars, 1918-1939.

Astrit Zemaj, lives in Prishtina. She is married and has four children, three girls and one boy.