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. | The prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo have put their initials to a deal to normalize relations between their governments. The talks were brokered by the EU, partly with an eye on bloc membership for both parties.
Serbia and its former province of Kosovo agreed on Friday to an EU-brokered |
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. | Azerbaijan has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest and has obtained a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Now officials in Baku seem intent on raising the country’s profile as an international donor.
“Azerbaijan already |
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. | “Croatia refused to take our hand in reconciliation,” Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic was quoted as telling the newspaper “Politika.”
He referred to President Boris Tadic’s apology to the Croatian people in 2007 as a symbolic gesture “that has opened a door to leave behind all that had happened in the past and to turn together towards the European future of the Western Balkans.” |
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. | Special Serbian police units raided a factory in the western town of Valjevo in an apparent attempt to arrest general Ratko Mladic, sought for war crimes by the UN war crimes tribunal.
According to local media, police units were deployed in and around the Vujic factory, just outside the city of Valjevo. |
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. | The proposal to divide Kosovo between its ethnic Albanian majority and minority Serbs was published on Monday, the anniversary of Nato’s 78-day air war.
The document, submitted to the UN, says that the Serbian government recognises UN jurisdiction in Kosovo but insists that only Serbs, without Kosovo Albanians |
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. | The government will function in a reduced capacity until the elections are held, he said.
Kosovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian province, had been under UN control since 1999, when Nato launched an air raids to stop a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. |
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. | One protester climbed up to the first floor of the building, located on one of the Serbian capital’s main boulevards, ripped the Stars and Stripes off its pole and briefly put up a Serbian flag in its place.
Protesters jumped up and down on the embassy balcony, holding up a Serbian flag as the crowd below of about 1,000 people cheered them on, shouting “Serbia, Serbia”. |
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. | “The political agreement that the EU has proposed while it deploys a mission to dismember our country is a deception,” Kostunica said in a statement, paving the way to a government crisis. “By signing, Serbia would indirectly recognize the independence of Kosovo.” |
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. | Tadic wants closer ties with the EU.
Kosovo factor The issue of Kosovo had weighed heavily in the elections, though both Tadic and Nikolic had opposed ethnic Albanians’ independence drive. |
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. | Kosovo, 90% populated by ethnic Albanians, has been a UN protectorate since NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign that ended a conflict between Serb troops and Albanian separatists. Serbia has offered broad autonomy for the province, but Kosovo has so far insisted on full sovereignty. |
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. | He said Kosovo is “a sacred land for Serbs” and “to ignore it means to insult and abase the whole nation”.
At the meeting with PACE President Rene van der Linden he said Russia can not remain silent while UNESCO world heritage churches dating from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries are being destroyed. |
