The Serbs, who still constitute a majority in several municipalities in the north of Kosovo, once a province of Serbia and now an Albanian ethnic-majority state, have butted heads with the central authorities in Pristina for years.
On Friday, Kosovo authorities closed branches of Serbian institutions in Kosovska Mitrovica operating according to the administrative system of Serbia parallel to the Kosovar system.
In its statement, the U.S. embassy to Kosovo expressed “concern and disappointment” with what it called “continuing uncoordinated actions” undertaken by Pristina, which it said “continue to have a direct and negative effect on members of the ethnic Serb community and other minority communities in Kosovo.” It also stressed that Washington is disappointed with the “continued instrumentalization” of the police force.
“Issues related to Serbia-supported structures in Kosovo should be dealt with through the EU-facilitated Dialogue. This action was not coordinated with any element of the international community,” the statement further read, adding that Washington had made numerous and repeated attempts to communicate to Pristina to heed U.S. concerns that Kosovar authorities’ “failure” to do so “reflects a real and increasing deterioration in our partnership.”
The U.S. embassy further said that “uncoordinated actions” put the citizens of Kosovo as well as NATO’s KFOR mission to Kosovo peacekeepers at risk, and “unnecessarily escalate regional tensions, and undermine Kosovo’s reputation as a reliable international partner.”
Similar concerns were raised by the U.S. Department of State Assistant Secretary Jim O’Brien, responsible for European and Eurasian affairs, who called on Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti to “consult and coordinate with the international community and to cease uncoordinated actions that negatively affect our partnership.”
The Serbo-Albanian Kosovo conundrum
Refusing to acknowledge the 2008 declaration of independence, which came in the aftermath of a protracted civil war brought to an end by NATO intervention manifested by a bombing campaign of Serbia, Kosovo’s Serbs have insisted on using Belgrade-issued license plates, and even carrying out transactions in the Serbian currency, the dinar, instead of the officially adopted euro. This even extended to paying out old-age pensions, as well as salaries of officials, such as school teachers and public healthcare workers.
The decision, which resulted in Kosovo closing down six branches of a Serbia-licensed bank in the north of the country, has alienated Western allies, on whom Pristina relies for propping up its sovereignty through the presence of NATO troops and Brussels’ dangling the carrot of EU membership in front of the authorities in Belgrade.
Pristina had banned the use of dinars starting February 1 this year, but the argument over the ban on the use of Serbian-issued license plates has been causing serious tensions between Pristina, Belgrade, and Kosovar Serbs caught in the middle since 2021, prior to which Kosovo begrudgingly accepted their use by Kosovar Serbs. Attempts to cow the Serbs with threats of fines and vehicle confiscations have only led to further escalation, manifested by road blockades.
In April 2023, the Serb population spurned local elections and also
boycotted a referendum held a year later to remove them. In August 2023, ethnically Serb officers working with Kosovar law enforcement, as well as many local officials, resigned from Kosovar institutions en masse, which Pristina accused Belgrade of instigating to fuel the tensions. Just a month later, a police patrol was attacked by a group of Serb gunmen who subsequently took refuge in
a monastery in Banjska, leading to a siege and several deaths.
The tensions have been further fueled by Kosovo’s failure to implement, as well as simultaneously hampering, the introduction of the 2013 Brussels Agreement to establish a Community of Serb Municipalities, according to which Serb-majority municipalities in the north, as well as other parts of the former Serbian province, would gain a level of autonomy in certain areas.
The Serb population’s continued refusal to cooperate with the authorities in Pristina has finally led to the government clamping down on the Northern Municipalities’ ‘parallel institutions’ which, in the words of Kosovo’s minister of local administration, Elbert Krasniqi, “violate the Republic of Kosovo’s constitution and laws.”
Earlier this month, Pristina said it would force the re-opening of a bridge spanning the river which divides the northern town of Mitrovica into ethnic Serb-majority and Albanian-majority halves. The bridge had been blockaded for passenger traffic by the Serbs since 2011, on account of them fearing “ethnic cleansing” of their section of the town should the Albanians be allowed to freely travel into it.
This and the recent forceful intervention by Kosovar law enforcement immediately resulted in a rebuke from the U.S. embassy in Pristina in a statement issued on Friday which can be considered harsh by the standards of language used in diplomacy.
It ought to be noted that Kosovar Albanians lionize American politicians whom they see as responsible for their independence from Serbia, with President Bill Clinton, who ordered the bombing of Serbia in 1999, having a boulevard in Pristina named after him, and a statue erected in 2009. The statue was unveiled a year and a half after Kosovo declared its independence, with the support of the administration of President George W. Bush, who also has a street named after him the Kosovar capital.
