Balkans

Russia will defiantly support Serbia at the International Court of Justice’s hearing on Kosovo’s declaration of independence, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says. Serbia filed a case against Kosovo after its unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008. The International Court of Justice hearing, which is to probe the legitimacy, or …

The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has urged the European Commission, EC, to change its plan for visa-liberalisation in the Balkans. The committee asked the EC to tentatively add Albania and Bosnia to the White Schengen list, pending the fulfillment of benchmarks, and to urgently open talks on the visa …

The governor of the National Bank of Serbia, Radovan Jelasic, says that the IMF is ready to help Serbia, but “only if there is serious reform”. Following the conclusion of the annual IMF-World Bank meetings in Istanbul, the Serbian government has less than three weeks to decide on how to …

Albania’s Foreign Minister Ilir Meta and his Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremic, have agreed to strengthen cooperation between their two countries. The pair’s meeting came on the sidelines of a regional conference of the so-called Visegrad states in Budapest on Tuesday, and was followed by a joint press conference. While the …

Chief mufti of the Islamic Community in Serbia, Muamer Zukorlić, has told EP Rapporteur Jelko Kacin that the rights of Serbian Muslims are in danger. Zukorlić met with Kacin in Slovenia to gave him a detailed report on the state of religious rights in Serbia, especially the “unlawful behavior of …

The Humanitarian Law Center will present to victims’ families the results of their census of dead and missing persons in Kosovo from January 1998 to Dec. 2000. According to the center, 13,321 individuals were killed, wounded or went missing during the armed conflicts in Kosovo in the period from January …

Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki will take part today at the meeting of the Visegrad Group foreign ministers, upon invitation of his Hungarian counterpart Peter Balash. The meeting will be attended by the ministers of the Visegrad Group – Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia, of the next two presiding …

Greek socialist leader George Papandreou was sworn in as prime minister on Tuesday and was expected to announce within hours a leaner cabinet focused on taking Greece out of an economic crisis. With his hand on the Bible, the PASOK leader was sworn in by Greece’s archbishop Ieronymos in a …

The chief of the EU mission in Kosovo, EULEX, Peter Feith said that the EU planned to strengthen its presence in Northern Kosovo, Serbian B92 radio reports. He noted that the number of EULEX officials would be increased and a commission would be set up to better notify the citizens …

The Presevo Valley should be a separate region inside Serbia, since existing administrative divisions do not protect minority rights, the president of Bujanovac municipality, Shaip Kamberi, tells daily Politika. “Even though the Serbian government disagrees, we consider that a region, which would recognise language, religious and other diversity, would be …