PRISTINA: Kosovo on Friday closed five parallel institutions working with the ethnic Serb minority, a step that was immediately criticized by Washington and could further increase tensions with neighboring Serbia.
Elbert Krasniqi, Kosovo’s minister of local administration has confirmed the closure of five parallel institutions in the north — where most of the ethnic Serb minority lives — writing in a social media message that they “violate the Republic of Kosovo’s constitution and laws.”
The US embassy in Kosovo has reiterated Washington’s “concern and disappointment with continuing uncoordinated actions” taken by Kosovo “that continue to have a negative and direct impacts on members of minority communities in the country.”
According to media reports, Serbia continues to help Serb people following Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008, which Belgrade doesn’t accept. Kosovo was a former Serbian province until a 78-day NATO bombing campaign in 1999 ended a war between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian government forces in Kosovo, which left around 13,000 people dead, largely ethnic Albanians, and pushed Serbian troops out.
Kosovo-Serbia relations remain tense and the 13-year-long normalization talks facilitated by the European Union (EU) have failed to make progress, particularly following a shootout last September between Kosovo police and masked Serb gunmen that left four people dead.
The US and the EU have pressed both sides to implement deals that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti reached in February and March last year.
