The conflict in Ukraine and the consequent clash between Russia and the United States risks rekindling tense relations that are never completely pacified. A very delicate place is precisely Kosovo, a region long disputed between Albanians and Serbs. In recent days, about 10 thousand Kosovo Serbs demonstrated in the Kosovar city of Mitrovica to affirm their belonging to Serbia and their refusal to submit to the authority of Pristina, which aroused the ire of the Serbian population by demanding the use of official plates of the country instead of those of Belgrade. 'This territory is Serbia' is the slogan of the protesters, as reported by the Serbian press agency Tanjug.
It is estimated that around 150,000 ethnic Serbs live in Kosovo, a region that unilaterally achieved independence from Serbia in 2008 and is mainly populated by Albanians. Half of these people live in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo, where the Serbian opposition to the Pristina government is concentrated. The situation has even alarmed the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic. After canceling his travels abroad due to developments in Kosovo, the Serbian president held several meetings on the situation, with the Serbian government, foreign ambassadors and Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In an official statement Vucic said:
Serbia will not give up a responsible policy of peace and stability.
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said at a meeting in Vienna that Pristina's most recent actions aimed to humiliate Kosovo Serbs and even deny all their rights, and added that this indicated that Pristina did not want to respect the Brussels agreement, an agreement signed in 2013 and which, at least in theory, should have normalized relations between Serbia and Kosovo. The minister then replied on the possibility of a plan to redefine the assets of the disputed region.
Goran Rakic, Minister of Regional Communities and leader of the Serbian List, the main Serbian party in Kosovo, supported by government of Belgrade:
That's enough. Enough with the abuses, mistreatment, oppression and violations of the rights of Serbs in Kosovo.
The European Union has already made it known that the tensions between the two communities can seriously jeopardize the efforts made in recent years to create a climate of peace and collaboration between Serbs and Kosovars.
It should be remembered that in the long diatribe between Serbia and Kosovo, the West, and especially NATO, have always supported the latter.
On March 24, 1999, at 20.25, the first bombing of Belgrade; on the 26th March, the operation, called humanitarian interventions, counts already 500 bombings. They will last 78 days and will unload 2,700 tons of explosives.
References:
https://www.politico.eu/article/ethnic-tension-flare-kosovo-serbia/
