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NATO Chief Due In Kosovo Amid Tensions

People sit in the tent on a road blockade decorated with the Serbian flag and pictures of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the village of Rudare, near Mitrovica on August 7, 2011.

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September 14, 2011

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is due to visit Kosovo today amid rising tensions.

Ethnic Serbs in the north of Kosovo oppose plans by Kosovo's mainly ethnic Albanian leaders to man two border crossings there.

Serbian President Boris Tadic has warned the plan could spark violence. The country has also sent an official complaint to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

For his part, Kosovo's Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, has accused the Serbs of preparing to use violence to block the move.

He also said the plan would go ahead on September 16 with the help of the European Union police force in Kosovo, EULEX, and NATO peacekeepers.

A statement by the head of EULEX, Xavier bout de Marnhac, said "operational work" at the border crossings "will be done by EULEX."

On September 14, Serbs in the north were reported to have halted a convoy of German NATO soldiers heading north to the border.

Serbs in the divided town of Mitrovica set up barricades of buses, rocks and trucks loaded with stones.

Kosovo tried in July to station police and customs officials at the two crossings with Serbia.

Serbs responded by setting up roadblocks and stopped NATO peacekeepers from reaching bases in the north.

With backing from the West, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Today, more than 80 countries recognize it as an independent country.

Serbia is under pressure from the EU to work out its problems with Pristina if it wants to gain EU candidate status.

compiled from agency reports

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Comment Sorting

Comments

by: Mike from: Alberta

September 15, 2011 03:41

I cannot understand why the west is promoting this land grab from Serbia!?! Are they trying to create another Palestine in Europe? It's plainly evident that Kosovo is Serbian! Just look at the thousands of ancient Serbian churches and monasteries that have covered the Kosovo landscape for ages! Is it not obvious that the so-called leader of that region is a criminal either? He was afterall, wanted by Interpol for crimes all over Europe and had ties with terrorist groups. Let's not forget that there were over 200,000 Serbs in Kosovo but were cleansed from that part of their own country with the help of the West! Why are they creating problems here and outright taking away another country's land by giving to criminal land squatters? Just sickening.

by: Veton from: Prishtina

September 15, 2011 11:46

Dear Mike,
Please find some time and read following:
In the 4th century BC, the area was in the eastern parts of Illyria which borderd on Thrace. At that time it was inhabited by the Thraco-Illyrian tribes of the Dardani, by Celts and the Thracian tribe of the Triballi.
The region of Illyria was conquered by Rome in 168 BC, and made into the Roman province of Illyricum in 59 BC. The Kosova region probably became part of Moesia Superior in AD 87, although archaeological evidence suggests that it may have been divided between Dalmatia and Moesia.
After 284 Diocletian further divided Upper Moesia into the smaller provinces of Dardania, Moesia Prima, Dacia Ripensis, and Dacia Mediterranea. Dardania's capital was Naissus, previously a Celtic settlement. The Roman province of Dardania included eastern parts of modern Kosova, while its western part belonged to the newly formed Roman province of Prevalitana with its capital Doclea. The Romans colonized the region and founded several cities.
Justinian I, who assumed the throne of the Byzantine Empire in 527, oversaw a period of Byzantine expansion into former Roman territories, and re-absorbed the area of Kosova into the empire. Historians consider him to be the last Roman emperor because his native tongue was Latin and he was the last emperor to attempt reuniting the Latin-speaking West with the East.
Slavic migrations to the Balkans took place between the 6th to 7th centuries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kosovo#Early_history

In Response

by: Nikola from: Kosovo,Serbia

September 15, 2011 13:28

KOSOVO was never albanian. The facts you wrote about Illirians have nothing to do with the subject,unless you're one of the hard core murderous and rapist nationalists that spread the "historical" lectures about Albanians descending form Illytians? You'll have to explain a few religious probles such as: Serbian territory,in times of Dusan the mighty,were across now-a-day albania as well thus the "abanian orthodoh chrurch" is actualy Serbian property same as all the monasteries and chruches in Kosovo. Second,Illyrians had a diferent type of language then albanians,and you cant switch types of languages,I cant remmember the names exactly but I do remmember the German historyan laughing at an albanian nazy for saying "WE CAN" :D Fact is,Kosovo has been a part of Serbia for 1300 years and a part of albania for 0,you do not originate from Illyrians but from Ottoman turks,your own religion Islam states that and its not intolerant of me to point a finger to the obvious so do not even try that. You did too much horrific terrorist crimes on Serbs to get away with it AGAIn. Albanians (in Kosovo too) were pro-nazy killers in both WW2 and WW1 with promises by west that they will get their "Great Albania"...

by: Maria from: US

September 15, 2011 13:05

The Serbs were demonized in the '90s and naive people in the West believed they were purely evil, and that the other factions were purely innocent.

Here in the US we do not refer to those who committed atrocities in WWII as "Germans" but as "Nazis". That is, we condemn the ideology, not the ethnicity. Yet the West had no problem comparing an entire ethnicity, the Serbs, to the Nazis. Of the groups in conflict in the area, only the Serbs courageously resisted the real Nazis in WWII. The other two groups were collaborators. Yet now we are to believe they have become angelic.