Kosovo

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on August 21 that minority Serbs working in Kosovo institutions will leave their jobs unless a deal is reached to end their "persecution."

NATO will increase its peacekeeping force in Kosovo if there is an escalation of tensions with neighbouring Serbia, the alliance’s chief said on Wednesday (17 August), on the eve of EU-facilitated talks between the estranged western Balkan neighbours.

Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti warned of possible armed conflict with Serbia, following heightened border tensions with Belgrade over the past month. "We should not exclude that these aggressive policies of Belgrade could also turn into an assault against Kosovo in one way or the other," Kurti told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday (10 August).

Two border crossings between Kosovo and Serbia were reopened on Monday (1 August) after NATO-led peacekeepers supervised the removal of blockades that Serb protestors had set up over the weekend in a region existing with a fragile peace since the end of the 1998-1999 war.

Kosovo's government has postponed the implementation of new rules that would force people in majority ethnic Serb areas to swap their Serbian-issued car number plates for Kosovan-issued ones. The rules were due to come into force at midnight on Monday. But on Sunday ethnic Serbs in the north barricaded roads and armed men fired shots in protest.

Miroslav Lajcak told BIRN that he aims for a final agreement on normalised relations between Kosovo and Serbia before the EU heads into elections in 2024.

Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says his country will formally apply to become a member of the European Union by the end of 2022 despite concerns over tensions with neighboring Serbia, also an EU aspirant.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers war crimes court in The Hague extended the detention of ex-President Hashim Thaci and ex-parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli, citing concerns that they might abscond or interfere with witnesses.

Following Kosovo’s submission of an application to the Council of Europe (CoE) on Thursday (12 May), Serbian President Aleksander Vučić called an urgent meeting of the National Security Council for Friday, claiming Pristina has violated a number of agreements.

Kosovo Liberation Army ex-leaders turned politicians Hashim Thaci and Kadri Veseli pleaded not guilty to additional charges filed by Hague prosecutors alleging they committed further wartime and post-war crimes against civilians.