Kosovo celebrates 10 years since splitting from Serbia
PRISTINA: Kosovo yesterday celebrated 10 years since it declared independence, a moment of pride for its ethnic Albanian majority, although sovereignty remains fiercely contested by Serbia.
The capital here is covered in the blue-and-yellow Kosovan flag for a weekend of festivities, with Kosovo-born British pop star Rita Ora due to headline a concert in the main square.
A decade after a war between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian rebels and Serbian troops left 13,000 people dead – most of them Albanians — the Kosovan Parliament declared independence from Serbia on Feb 17, 2008.
“It was the happiest moment for all of us as a people,” said President Hashim Thaci in a statement on Friday, as children in Kosovo’s Albanian schools began the day with lessons dedicated to the anniversary.
This was not the case in the completely separate schooling system of Kosovo’s Serb minority, which remains loyal to Belgrade. Children from the two ethnic communities rarely mix.
Although more than 110 countries have recognised Kosovo as a state in the past 10 years, Belgrade refuses to do so.
Sovereignty is also rejected by Russia, whose Security Council veto prevented Kosovo from joining the United Nations, and five European Union countries including Spain and Greece.
The “normalisation” of ties between Belgrade and Pristina is crucial to both sides’ bids to join the EU, but Serbian officials say recognition of independence is a red line.
“Serbia will not recognise Kosovo and it will especially not recognise it in order to become an EU member,” Serbian Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin said on Thursday.
The former foes have reached deals on issues such as freedom of movement since talks began in 2011, but the EU-brokered dialogue has stalled over the past two years.
EU representative for foreign affairs Federica Mogherini nevertheless said on the eve of the anniversary that she was “realistically optimistic” that a “legally binding agreement” could be reached by the end of next year.
Some officials in Belgrade have raised the prospect of redrawing Kosovo’s borders along ethnic lines. In the far north, heavily dominated by Serbs, the Kosovo flag is shunned in favour of the red, blue and white stripes of Serbia.
But Thaci insists that Kosovo is “indivisible” and many fear a partition deal would destabilise the fragile Balkans.
Father Sava Janjic, a prominent Serb Orthodox monk in Kosovo, warned that the “collapse” of a multi-ethnic Kosovo would be a dangerous precedent for the region.
“The Balkans will again become a powder keg,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday.
The Kosovo war started in 1998 and came to an end the following year when Belgrade pulled out after the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombarded its forces, citing a need for a humanitarian intervention.