NATO peacekeepers helped remove road blocks in Kosovo that ethnic Serbs had erected in their weeks-long standoff with the largely ethnic-Albanian authorities.
(Bloomberg) — NATO peacekeepers helped remove road blocks in Kosovo that ethnic Serbs had erected in their weeks-long standoff with the largely ethnic-Albanian authorities.
With the European Union seeking to jumpstart dialog between the Balkan foes, NATO’s KFOR force used heavy machinery to remove two burnt-out trucks from a key road in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica on Tuesday, clearing the last of more than a dozen barricades built by protesting Serbs last month, the Pristina-based Koha news service reported.
The confrontation had brought the wartime rivals Serbia and Kosovo to the verge of a renewed conflict.
“We welcome the de-escalation of tensions and the dismantling of barricades in the north of Kosovo,” EU spokesperson Nabila Massrali told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. However, “the situation remains very fragile” and the EU will keep trying to broker a lasting agreement between the neighbors, she said.
The EU expects Serbs living in Kosovo to end their boycott of government institutions there. It also wants full implementation of agreements already made, such as the creation of an association of Serb-majority municipalities, Massrali said.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move that the government in Belgrade vows never to accept. Some 100,000 Serbs live in Kosovo among the largely ethnic-Albanian population of 1.8 million.
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