(7 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pristina, Kosovo – 07 October 2024
1. Kosovo government building
2. Kosovo flag
3. Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti arriving at news conference
4. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s Prime Minister:
"This morning, the Minister of Internal Affairs (Xhelal Svecla) wrote to the director of customs saying that at one of the border points with the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Kosovo has changed security measures from restriction to increased control until the scanners arrive. When the scanners arrive, they will be placed at all border points, but until they arrive, we will open one border point which will have increased control because the measures we have are security measures.”
5. Wide of news conference
6. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Albin Kurti, Kosovo’s Prime Minister:
"Let’s reiterate that our measures have never been commercial. They are security measures. In the last two years, Serbia has brought the army to the border of Kosovo four times. In the last four years, we have had four major confiscations of weapons and ammunition.”
7. Kurti leaving news conference
STORYLINE:
Kosovo’s government said Monday it would lift a ban on the entry of products from Serbia at one border crossing, 16 months after it halted imports to prevent what it said could be hidden shipments of weapons for Serb separatists.
The reopening is in line with efforts by Western partners to promote reconciliation and cooperation between the two neighboring Balkan nations.
Tensions between them flared in May 2023 when Kosovo police seized municipal buildings in Serb-majority communities in northern Kosovo where residents rejected the ethnic Albanian mayors elected in a vote boycotted by Serbs.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said the Merdare border crossing would reopen with stepped-up, hands-on monitoring of goods by customs agents at a location just 300 meters (yards) from the border.
The other five border crossings would open once they can be equipped with new scanners, he said.
Kosovo has cited the seizure of four large caches of weapons that Kurti says could have been brought through the border disguised as trade, as well as the movements of troops by Serbia near the border, as reasons for its move in June 2023 to curb cross-border trade.
“These were steps of security, never commercial ones,” Kurti told journalists Monday.
Local media in Kosovo have reported that Germany warned Kosovo that unless it reestablished trade it could be excluded from the Central European Free Trade Agreement and the Berlin Process, aimed at boosting cooperation among six western Balkan nations and the European Union.
Kosovo was a Serbian province until NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign in 1999 ended a war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, which left about 13,000 dead, mainly ethnic Albanians, and pushed Serbian forces out. Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008, which Serbia doesn’t recognize.
The European Union and the United States are pressing both sides to implement agreements that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kurti reached in February and March last year.
They include a commitment by Kosovo to establish an Association of the Serb-Majority Municipalities.
Serbia is also expected to deliver on the de-facto recognition of Kosovo, which Belgrade still considers its province.
The NATO-led international peacekeepers known as KFOR have increased their presence in Kosovo after last year’s tense moments.
AP video shot by Florent Bajrami
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