Ten years of sovereignty celebrated
PRISTINA: Kosovo on Saturday celebrates 10 years since its unilateral declaration of independence — a sovereignty still under construction and stubbornly rejected by its Serb minority and Belgrade.
Pristina takes any opportunity to affirm its independence: although unlikely to become a snow-sports power, it proudly celebrated skier Albin Tahiri, Kosovo’s lone athlete in last week’s opening parade in Pyeongchang and its first sportsman in a Winter Olympics.
Some 115 countries now recognise the predominantly ethnic Albanian territory as a state, including 23 of the 28 EU members and the United States, a leading ally.
While Pristina’s streets are covered in Kosovo’s blue-and-yellow flags ahead of the landmark anniversary, this is not the case in areas that are home to the ethnic Serb minority.
Here allegiance remains with Belgrade and the Serbian flag flies high, although Serb MPs can now be seen in Kosovo’s parliament and government.
With Russia’s support, Serbia conducts guerrilla diplomacy against Kosovo, successfully closing the door of the United Nations and various other international institutions, such as Interpol, to its former province.
Belgrade’s unqualified rejection prevents Pristina’s control over entire areas of Kosovo.
This is particularly the case in the northern city of Mitrovica, sharply divided by ethnicity since the 1998-1999 war between Kosovo’s Albanian rebels and Serbian troops. The war left around 13,000 people dead, mostly Albanians.
An EU-brokered deal with Belgrade to “normalise” relations agreed on establishing an association of Serb municipalities to improve the rights of Kosovo’s Serbs. But it has not come into force, with Pristina rejecting the autonomy sought by Belgrade.
Serbs make up around 120,000 of Kosovo’s 1.8 million people — an estimated figure as they refused to participate in the last census in 2011.
“The territorial integrity of Kosovo is intangible, indivisible, and internationally recognised,” Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci said this week.
The former political chief of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Mr Thaci said in a recent interview that he wanted a “final historic agreement” with Belgrade this year.
“The international community will have to accept” such a deal, he added.
Relations between Pristina and its Western allies have been strained for the past year, since Mr Thaci submitted plans, later withdrawn, to establish an army without constitutional changes.