Conflict with minority Serbs sets Kosovo back 15 years after independence | – #Conflict #minority #Serbs #sets #Kosovo #years #independence
PRISTINA, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Serbia in Kosovo in December the police and when the forces were put on the highest alert in response to escalating violence among minority Serb protesters, the shareholder of Pristina’s newest shopping center began receiving calls from upset investors.
Fatmir Zymberi told Reuters that “International companies, which were supposed to come to Kosovo for the first time, said that they delayed the opening of shops because of the unstable situation.” This meant that Kosovo is a dangerous region for them.”
Tense Western diplomacy ended a feared armed conflict on the eve of the 15th anniversary of ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, the result of a 1998-99 guerrilla insurgency.
But unresolved grievances continue to prevent normal neighborly relations between Pristina and Belgrade. Western mediators at a time when Russia’s war on Ukraine raises fears of regional turmoil national they see little chance of a breakthrough anytime soon, with leaders seemingly unwilling to make real compromises.
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A major, long-standing source of tension is the refusal of northern Kosovo’s 50,000 ethnic Serbs to recognize the Pristina government or Kosovo as a separate country. Instead, they consider Belgrade their capital, and Serbia’s constitution still considers Kosovo an integral part of its territory.
The ethnic Serb-dominated area of northern Kosovo is seen in some ways as an extension of Serbia.
Teachers in the region, doctors and civil servants receive their salaries and benefits from Belgrade. Residents of Serb-majority municipalities neither in Belgrade nor in Pristina tax they do not pay, nor do they pay for energy provided by Kosovo’s state utility.
Serbian flags fly in the streets, murals proclaim Kosovo an eternal part of Serbia, and shops prefer the Serbian dinar to the euro used elsewhere in Kosovo.
The conflict led to numerous clashes on the ground as Serbs set up barricades and clashed with the Kosovo Provincial Police.
Late last year, Pristina reversed a decision by the Serbs to change the license plates of Serbian cars dating back to the 1990s to Pristina-issued ones. execution when he moved to do so, violence erupted as Serb protesters blocked roads and exchanged fire with police.
Border crossings are closed. He brought the Serbian army to the highest state of combat readiness and NATOof its peacekeeping forces in Kosovo for the first time since 1999 1000 soldier asked for permission to send – NATO denied this, while Pristina accused Belgrade of destabilizing Kosovo with the help of its ally Russia.
The Kremlin has denied that Belgrade is merely defending the rights of Kosovo Serbs, and has denied that Serbia was involved in fueling the conflict.
European Union and USA After crisis mediation by its diplomats and the Pristina deal, which postponed the implementation of car registration rules until the end of 2023, Serbia lifted its warning, the barricades were dismantled and a nervous calm prevailed.
EU’S 11-POINT NORMALIZATION PLAN
In mid-2022, the EU, backed by Washington, presented an 11-point peace and normalization plan to the two sides. Last month, mediators urged them to accept or face backlash, including losing support for EU membership bids.
As part of the plan, Serbia will stop lobbying against Kosovo’s seat at global organizations such as the United Nations, and Kosovo will create a union of semi-autonomous Serb-majority municipalities, fighting complaints of discrimination.
In early February, both Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic signaled their willingness to approve the plan, but said further negotiations would be needed.
EU foreign policy commissioner Josep Borrell said that he will soon invite the two leaders to Brussels for meetings. But Vucic said he wanted a group of Serbian municipalities to be formed before such talks, while Kurti said he wanted them to touch on “international guarantees.”
“There is little hope that this dialogue will actually reach a place. The current government in Kosovo consists of such hardliners that they even make Vučić look like a reasonable statesman,” an EU diplomat told Reuters on the condition of anonymity because of the fragility of the process.
“So Vucic can show he’s busy without risking too much that he’ll actually have to do the hard work. Everything should be opened on the Kosovo side first.”
Kosovo’s Constitutional Court has ruled that special, semi-autonomous status for Serbs would be unconstitutional, and Kurti says it would mean a de facto ethnic division of the tiny Western Balkan state.
It turns sour on me
After EU-brokered talks to ease tensions in 2013, Serbs in the north began working in Kosovo’s police, judiciary and local administration run by Pristina.
But three months ago, they responded to Pristina’s pressure against registering Serbian cars protest they left all state bodies.
Marko Prelec, a Balkans analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank, told Reuters that while the conflict over the move had subsided, “there are a lot of armed men around and short tempers.”
“I am more concerned than I have been in many years that the conflict in northern Kosovo could then escalate into reprisal attacks against Serbs in southern Kosovo. There may be reprisal attacks against Albanians in the north (also).”
Another 50,000 Serbs live south, east and west of the Albanian-majority northern city of Mitrovica, where they drive cars with Kosovo plates, pay Kosovo taxes and electricity bills and recognize the independent state.
“I don’t want to move, if we are safe, I want to stay and live here,” said Slavoljub Djuric, 62, who raises pigs and chickens on his family farm, one of 250 Serb families in the western village of Osojane. He told Reuters.
Djuric said that Kosovo and Serbian leaders should compromise. “Do something for people so that they live (well). The war here didn’t do anyone any good.”
PRESENTS THE DEVELOPMENT OF ETHNIC TENSIONS
During the 15 years of Kosovo’s independence UNMany of its member states, including several countries with their own troubled minorities in the EU, do not recognize its statehood, Serbia and Russia and continues to prevent Pristina from joining international organizations.
The legal uncertainty and instability surrounding Kosovo has deterred many investors and left it among the poorest countries in Europe, with a third of the workforce unemployed.
Zymberi, the shareholder of the Pristina shopping center, said that at the height of the December tension, a foreign commercial bank indefinitely postponed a main loan of 40 million euros to the center.
“I tell Kosovo politicians to get serious and find a solution to this problem. We cannot live with it forever. “The least they can do is not to use the word ‘war’.”
In 2015-2019, approximately 170,000 Kosovars – the population 10% left their homeland to seek a better life in Western Europe.
Economist Safet Gerxhaliu said that Kosovo’s prospects suffer from the lack of real peace with Belgrade and the weakening of the rule of law. “We really failed. And today the citizens of Kosovo are paying for this failure,” Gerxhaliu said.
Additional reporting by Ivana Sekularac in Pristina and Fatos Bytyci, Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Edited by Mark Heinrich
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2023-02-13 12:51:49
Source – reuters
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