PRISTINA, Kosovo: Kosovo authorities on Friday closed five parallel institutions working with the ethnic Serb minority, a move that was immediately criticized by the United States and could further raise tensions with neighboring Serbia.
Elbert Krasniqi, Kosovo’s minister of local administration, confirmed the closure of five so-called parallel institutions in the north — where most of the ethnic Serb minority lives — writing in a Facebook message that they “violate the Republic of Kosovo’s constitution and laws.”
The US embassy in Kosovo reiterated Friday in a statement Washington’s “concern and disappointment with continuing uncoordinated actions” taken by Pristina “that continue to have a direct and negative effect on members of the ethnic Serb community and other minority communities in Kosovo.”
Serbia continues to assist its Serb minority after Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008, which Belgrade doesn’t recognize.
Kosovo was a former Serbian province until a 78-day NATO 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-Serbia relationship remains tense and the 13-year-long normalization talks facilitated by the European Union have failed to make progress, especially following a shootout last September between masked Serb gunmen and Kosovo police that left four people dead.
The EU and the US have pressed both sides to implement agreements that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti reached in February and March last year.
Earlier this month Pristina said it would open the bridge on the Ibar River which divides Mitrovica into a Serb-dominated north and ethnic Albanian south. The bridge has been closed to passenger vehicle traffic for more than a decade, with minority ethnic Serbs erecting barricades since 2011 because they say “ethnic cleansing” would be carried out against them if ethnic Albanians could freely travel over the bridge into their part of the city.
Kurti has also been at odds with Western powers over Kosovo’s unilateral closure of six branches of a Serbia-licensed bank in northern Kosovo earlier this year.
Unrest in northern Mitrovica has increased since last year, when the NATO-led international peacekeepers force in Kosovo, known as KFOR, stepped up its numbers and equipment along the Kosovo-Serbia border, including at the bridge in Mitrovica.
The tiny Balkan country will hold parliamentary elections on Feb. 9, a vote that is expected to be a test for Kurti, whose governing party won in a landslide in the 2021.
Kosovo shuts down 5 Serbian governing structures in the north and US reacts with alarm
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Kosovo shuts down 5 Serbian governing structures in the north and US reacts with alarm
Ukraine army chief vows to expand strikes on Russia
Diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled in recent weeks.
The last direct meeting between the two sides was almost three weeks ago and no follow-up talks have been scheduled.
Russian attacks on Ukraine have killed dozens of people during the interim, including in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to officials.
“We will not just sit in defense. Because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories,” Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky told reporters including AFP.
Syrsky said Ukraine would continue its strikes on Russian military targets, which he said had proved “effective.”
“Of course, we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth,” he said.
Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war, targeting energy and military infrastructure sometimes hundreds of kilometers from the front line.
Kyiv says the strikes are a fair response to deadly Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians.
In wide-ranging remarks, Syrsky also conceded that Russia had some advantages in drone warfare, particularly in making fiber-optic drones that are tethered and difficult to jam.
“Here, unfortunately, they have an advantage in both the number and range of their use,” he said.
He also claimed that Ukraine still held 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) of territory in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched an audacious cross-border incursion last August.
“These are our pre-emptive actions in response to a possible enemy offensive,” he said.
Russia said in April that it had gained full control of the Kursk region and denies that Kyiv has a presence there.
Moscow occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its invasion in 2022 — in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging a peace deal to prolong its full-scale offensive on the country and to seize more territory.
The Russian army said Sunday that it had captured the village of Petrivske in Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region.
Russian forces also fired at least 47 drones and three missiles at Ukraine between late Saturday and early Sunday, the Ukrainian air force said.
At least two people were killed in the attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, including a 17-year-old boy, the region’s governor said.
Pope Leo urges international diplomacy to prevent ‘irreparable abyss’
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
Winds fuel fears of new Croatia wildfires
ZAGREB: Firefighters in southern Croatia were on high alert Sunday in fear that expected strong winds could rekindle blazes in the Balkan nation.
Crews, with the help of water bombers, managed to get control Saturday over wildfires on the southern Adriatic coast, after a series of blazes started in recent days.
The fires, near Croatia’s second largest city Split, that started Saturday morning close to the coastal village of Pisak was put under control but were still smoldering.
They have burnt 300 hectares (740 acres) and dozen of houses, authorities said.
According to the Split-Dalmatia county firefighting commander, Ivan Kovacevic during the night several small fires were put down by the firefighters.
“The damage is huge, but it could have been bigger having given the number of structures that were threatened,” Kovacevic said.
No death have been report, while one firefighter and some civilians have suffered minor injuries.
According to Civil protection headquarters at least 94 people, mostly tourists were evacuated in Omis, but late Saturday they returned to their accommodation.
Deputy prefect of Split-Dalmatia county, Stipe Cogelja said the village of Marusic on the Adriatic coast suffered the most damages, adding it was “pure luck” that no one had died.
Police said they are “intensively investigating” the possibility of arson in the fires and called on the citizens to help by immediately reporting any suspicious behavior.
Iran’s Paris-based opposition head says time for Khamenei to go, after US hits nuclear sites
PARIS: Maryam Rajavi, head of the Paris-based opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran said on Sunday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was responsible for the nuclear program that had now “gone up in smoke” and needed to go.
“Now Khamenei must go. The Iranian people welcome the end of the war and seek peace and freedom,” she said in a statement, following unprecedented US strikes that President Donald Trump said had “obliterated” its key nuclear facilities.
“Khamenei is responsible for an unpatriotic project that, in addition to costing countless lives, has cost the Iranian people at least $2 trillion— and now, it has all gone up in smoke.”
Japan spots Chinese ships near disputed isles for record 216 straight days
- The Tokyo-administered islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, have long been a sore point between the neighbors
TOKYO: Japan spotted Chinese vessels sailing near disputed islets in the East China Sea for a record 216 consecutive days, Tokyo’s coast guard said Sunday.
The Tokyo-administered islands, known as the Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, have long been a sore point between the neighbors.
On Sunday, Japan said it observed four Chinese coast guard vessels sailing in the “contiguous” zone, referring to a 12-nautical-mile band that extends beyond Japan’s territorial waters.
Last year, Chinese vessels sailed near the Tokyo-administered island chain a record 355 times, including for a period of 215 consecutive days, a Japanese coast guard spokesman told AFP.
Japanese officials regularly protest the presence of the Chinese coast guard and other vessels in the waters surrounding the remote, disputed islands.
Relations between Japan and China were strained by Tokyo’s decision to “nationalize” some of the islands in 2012.
On Friday, Japan’s coast guard and its US and Filipino counterparts staged joint training drills off Japan’s southwest shore — the second time the countries’ coast guards have held training drills together, and the first in Japan.
Territorial disputes with China have pushed Japan to forge deeper ties with the Philippines and the United States.
Earlier this month, Tokyo and Beijing traded barbs over close encounters between their military planes over the Pacific high seas.
