Serbia

Serb minorities in neighbouring countries do not enjoy full equality and are not guaranteed their collective rights, Serbian NGO Napredni klub argues in a new report. The report argues that Serbs do not enjoy equality with fellow citizens in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It finds that the status of …

BELGRADE, Serbia Police arrested Stanko Ristic, a close associate of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, local media reported on Tuesday (August 3rd). Ristic’s lawyer vowed to appeal the arrest. This is not his first. The retired military pilot was jailed for 162 days in 2006 during an investigation …

Residents of Strpce, Kosovo are receiving electricity for the first time in 34 days, the head of Strpce municipality, Zvonko Mihajlovic, told the Tanjug news agency on Monday. The power supply has yet to resumed for several major customers, including the post office, Raiffeisen bank and Serbian telecommunications company Telekom, …

Albanians from southern Serbia have started an initiative for the forming of a special region Presevo Valley. But the Belgrade political public sees this as an unacceptable act of separatism, Serbia’s Kurir reported. Albanian parties forwarded to the Serbian government a request for the formation of Albanian regional institutions and …

BELGRADE Chairman of the Coordination Body for Southern Serbia Milan Marković says the recent ethnic Albanian declaration “will not solve any problems”. The body deals with issues in the southern municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa, where Serbia’s largest population of ethnic Albanians outside of Kosovo itself lives.

Ethnic Albanian officials in southern Serbia have launched a new initiative for the formation of a separate region in the Presevo Valley with its own institutions and organs. The proposal was raised in the assembly of the Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac municipalities and envisages the creation of an ethnic Albanian-led …

Serbia and Armenia are key states in resolving European energy supply problems and political crises in their regions, Serbian President Boris Tadic said on his return from Yerevan on Wednesday. Tadic is back in Belgrade after a two-day diplomatic trip to Armenia in which he held talks with President Serzh …

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has refused to rule out the possibility of recognising Kosovo’s independence in an interview with the BBC. Jemeric told the BBC’s World Tonight programme on Monday night that Serbia wanted negotiations with Pristina, adding that Belgrade would be “very flexible”. Asked explicitly if the Serbian …

BELGRADE, Serbia Come September, the government plans to submit to the EU and the international community a new plan for decentralising Kosovo. Oliver Ivanovic, a senior official in the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija, said on Tuesday (July 28th) that Serbia still rejects former envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s independence plan as …

Italy strongly supports the European integration of the Western Balkans and backs thawing the Interim Trade Agreement between the EU and Serbia, says Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. “Italy is decisively engaged in convincing its partners in the EU who do not support the unfreezing of the Interim Trade Agreement …