Kosovo displays weapons seized after recent siege
Kosovo on Monday (September 25) called on Serbia to hand over all those involved in a gunfight between Kosovo police and Serb armed groups that left four people dead in the country’s restive north. . (Reuters)
- Thousands of Kosovo’s Serb minority protested against the ban on Serbian currency, sparking a crisis in relations between Serbia and Kosovo.
- The Kosovo government banned the use of the dinar in Serb-populated areas from February 1 and replaced it with the euro.
- The dinar was widely used in Serb-dominated areas for pensions, salaries, and Serb-run institutions such as schools and hospitals.
Thousands of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo protested on Monday against a ban on the use of Serbian currency in their areas. This issue has been the cause of the recent crisis in Serbian-Kosovo relations.
Tensions escalated after the government of Kosovo, a former Serbian province, banned banks and other financial institutions in Serb-populated areas from using the dinar in domestic transactions from February 1 and introduced the euro. .
The dinar was widely used in Serb-majority areas, particularly in northern Kosovo, to pay pensions and salaries to employees of Serb-run institutions such as schools and hospitals.
Serbian leader expresses anger over Kosovo ban on Serbian dinar at UN meeting
The ban angered both Kosovo Serbs and Serbia. The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo heatedly debated the issue at a UN Security Council meeting last week.
On February 12, 2024, Kosovo Serbs protest against the ban on the use of Serbian currency in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo. (AP Photo/Bojan Slavkovic)
Participants at a rally in the Serb neighborhood of Mitrovica, a town in divided northern Kosovo, said the abolition of the dinar violated the rights of Serbs in Kosovo and was discriminatory. They called on the international community to put pressure on the Kosovo government to reverse this move.
“This effectively means taking food off our tables,” said Dusanka Jorovic from the local pensioners’ association.
Doctor Dragiša Milovic said Kosovo’s decision “aims to abolish Serb institutions in these regions.”
In Pristina, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti dismissed such criticism in a message to Kosovo Serbs. Kurti insisted that the new measures are aimed at curbing the flow of illicit funds and “do not stop Serbia from financially supporting citizens of the Serb community in Kosovo.”
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“Kosovo did not stop the dinar, the dollar, the pound or the Swiss franc,” Kurti said. “The only change from February 1st is that cash cannot cross the border in bags, but must be withdrawn in euros via a bank account.”
In 1999, a 78-day NATO bombing campaign ended the war between Serbian government forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. Although Serbian forces were driven out, Belgrade does not recognize Kosovo’s independence and still considers it a province of Serbia.
The European Union and the United States expressed concern that Kosovo’s dinar ban could increase tensions in an already volatile region and called for consultations and a postponement of the ban.
The EU has been mediating negotiations between the two countries with the aim of normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo, but progress has been slow, and as the war in Ukraine intensifies, occasional violent incidents occur, and the Balkan Peninsula is in disarray. Concerns about stabilization are growing.
