Balkan News

The Name dispute must be solved in order Macedonia to join NATO, NATO Secretary General Andres Fogh Rasmussen said at the meeting with Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski in Brussels. Rasmussen urged for name settlement and expressed hope to see Macedonia as NATO member state very soon. Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola …

Situation along the Bulgarian –Greek border is so far calm. This is what head of Smolyan Border Police Regional Directorate Commissary Todor Georgiev said. Although all checkpoints work normally and there are no lines of waiting vehicles, Commissary Georgiev warns people to restrict from travelling to Greece. The reason is …

Greek officials are bracing for a European Union grilling next week over faulty national statistics as the country awaits approval of a national crisis plan on its debt-hit economy. European finance ministers on Tuesday are to tell Athens to clean up its accounting practices and improve the administration of key …

Cypriot President Dimitri Christofias started an official visit to Greece Saturday. Christofias was received by his Greek counterpart Karolos Papoulias at the Athens Presidential Mansion. Christofias, who is also the leader of the Greek Cypriot community, briefed Papoulias on his talks last week with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat …

NATO reiterated that its doors remain opened for Macedonia, but only after a solution to its name dispute with Athens is reached. “There is not shortcut: we made the decision in Bucharest, that we will start accession talks with Skopje immediately after a mutually acceptable solution is found. I encourage …

Serbia’s foreign minister Vuk Jeremic has ordered the immediate withdrawal of Serbia’s ambassador in Podgorica following Montenegro’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with Kosovo. Jeremic asked the ambassador to return to Belgrade for consultations. After much discussion about when the right time is to establish diplomatic relations with Kosovo, Montenegro’s …

Due to a lack of political agreement there haven’t been any reforms Bosnia in the past three years, High International Representative Valentin Inzko says. Those reforms, the Austrian diplomat added, could have made Bosnia-Herzegovina a more functional state. At the meeting of the EU political directors in Madrid, Inzko said …

The Hague Tribunal rejected on Thursday Vojislav Šešelj’s request to hold a phone press conference, SRS official Aleksandar Martinović said. The of the opposition party, on trial at the Hague on charges of war crimes, made the request ahead of the snap local election in the municipality of Odžaci, scheduled …

The chief of the International Civilian Office in Kosovo, Pieter Feith, says a strategy exists for the integration of the northern part of Kosovo. It envisages the forming of the institutions of Kosovo in this part of Kosovo’s territory. After a meeting with Kosovo Premier Hashim Thaci, Feith said that …

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić and his Turkish and Bosnian counterparts Ahmet Davutoglu and Sven Alkalaj will meet today in Belgrade. The meeting will be the fourth regular monthly meeting of the three foreign ministers.