Kosovo reopens two Serbia border crossings after protests

Italian Carabinieri members patrol at the Mitrovica bridge, that has long separated Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the restive northern area of Kosovo, in the divided city of Mitrovica on August 16, 2024. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

PRISTINA — Kosovo on Saturday reopened two of its four border crossings with Serbia after protests on the Serbian side blocking cross-border traffic ended, the interior minister said.

The Kosovar government shut the border at Brnjak and the larger crossing in the village of Merdare overnight.

Both villages are located in troubled northern Kosovo, where a majority of ethnic Serbs in several districts outnumber ethnic Albanians, who overwhelmingly populate the rest of the Balkan country.

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Kosovar Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said on Facebook that the decision to reopen the crossings was made after announcements that blockades by “masked extremists placed yesterday in the territory of Serbia” had been lifted.

There have been “no obstacles to traffic from and to the border points of the Republic of Kosovo”, he added.

The crossings were closed after dozens of demonstrators in Serbia on Friday prevented traffic entering the country from Kosovo.

They said they were protesting against the closure of a so-called parallel system of social services and political offices backed by the Serbian government inside Kosovo, rivalling official institutions.

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Belgrade — which has never recognised the independence of Kosovo, a former southern province of Serbia — finances a separate health, education and social security system for the ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo.

The action on the border began a few days after police in northern Kosovo raided and closed five municipal offices linked to the Belgrade government in ethnic Serb areas.

Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla told reporters on Friday that the Serbia protests were “yet more proof” that Belgrade was trying to provoke and destabilise its southern neighbour.

Animosity has persisted between the Balkan neighbours since the war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents in the late 1990s.

Kosovo later declared independence in 2008, a move that Serbia has refused to acknowledge, encouraging ethnic Serbs in Kosovo to remain loyal to Belgrade.

Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo have been simmering for months, following the introduction of a rule earlier this year that made the euro the only legal currency in Kosovo, effectively outlawing the use of the Serbian dinar.