Balkans

TIRANA Albanian villagers prevented Council of Europe (CoE) officials from conducting an investigation into the trafficking of human organs, Albanian media reported. Former Hague chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte mentioned in her book published last year that the home of the Katuci family and the village of Rripe in north …

PRIŠTINA The Kosovo Albanian government has passed a decision for the purchase of buildings in Washington, London, Paris and Brussels, to house its embassies. According to a statement released in Priština, the government adopted a request of its foreign ministry to start with buying only four buildings due to a …

BELGRADE The Serb National Council of Kosovo (SNV) official Radmila Trajković has commented on the government’s stance regarding the announced local elections in Kosovo. She said that “local self-government will have no responsibility toward Serbs” if Belgrade called for a boycott of the vote, scheduled for November. “I do not …

BELGRADE Coordinator of the Forum for Ethnic Relations, Dušan Janjić, said that visa liberalization is not possible for residents of Kosovo currently. He added that the reasons for this is that Serbia “has no control over the province”. Commenting on Interior Minister Ivica Dačić’s statement that the government should adopt …

Detainees from Guantanamo Bay might be relocated to Zabela prison in Pozarevac, Serbia, an anonymous source close to the Serbian government told daily Danas on Tuesday. According to the source, Serbia’s embassy in Washington has passed the prisoner transfer proposal to the US government in order to strengthen bilateral relations. …

The US does not support “any kind of partition of Kosovo”, US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said, in comments carried by Tanjug. “I can tell you that our policy remains unchanged,” local Albanian media in Pristina quoted Toner as saying. He added that the US supports the sovereignty and …

Albania should block Macedonia’s NATO accession if Skopje continues to neglect its large Albanian community, the head of an ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia says. Menduh Thaci, the head of the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, told a Monday press conference that he considered asking Albanian Prime Minister Sali …

Another bidder has pulled out of the 3.5 billion euros project to revolutionise Kosovo’s energy sector. German utility EnBW firm and its US-based partner WGI confirmed to Balkan Insight that they are no longer interested in investing in the scheme to build a 2,000MW plant on the outskirts of Pristina.

BRUSSELS – The EU should step up aid for demining activities in Croatia, where almost a 1,000 square kilometers of suspected minefields still wait to be cleared – an effort which could take another 50 years at the current pace, an official from the most affected region. “We speak on …

According to Bulgarian daily Standart, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boiko Borissov will visit Brussels on September 9 and 10 for talks about unfreezing EU funds for Bulgaria. Joining Borissov on his visit will be Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov and Foreign Minister Roumyana Zheleva. The agenda for the meetings had already …