Serbia

Police stepped up security near Serbian monuments and graves after several attacks amid heightened tensions over Belgrade’s removal of an Albanian memorial.Three people have been detained after a World War II memorial was demolished in the town of Vitia and more than 60 Serbian graves were attacked across Kosovo on …

In the fourth round of the EU-mediated dialogue, Serbia’s prime minister and his Kosovo counterpart agreed on customs duties and VAT for Serb-run north Kosovo.Following a five-hour meeting, which ended late on Thursday, the two prime ministers reached “a provisional understanding on the collection of customs duties, levies and VAT,” …

Belgrade says the Hague Tribunal will examine whether it can re-open the case against two Croatian generals acquitted of war crimes.Serbia’s justice minister Nikola Selakovic said during a visit to The Hague on Thursday that Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, …

Wednesday’s meeting between the Croatian and Serbian prime ministers raised hopes that counter-claims of genocide will be abandoned, a European Parliament rapporteur said.Zagreb and Belgrade should not ignore problems caused by their conflicts in the 1990s but try to solve them through dialogue, said the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Serbia, …

Tomslav Nikolic says Serbia has no intention of allowing Kosovo to obtain a seat at the United Nations.Speaking on Wednesday, President Nikolic said that Serbia would not allow Kosovo to join UN and the issue would stay off the table at upcoming EU-led Belgrade-Pristina talks. “If it was acceptable, I …

The Austrian company is to start construction of a factory in the town of Subotica in northern Serbia in June.The construction of the new Swarovski factory will start in June and should be complete by late 2014, Mladjan Dinkic, Serbia’s finance minister, said on January 16, after meeting Swarovski managers …

Belgrade warned it could deploy police to help remove the memorial to ethnic Albanian fighters in south Serbia but local authorities vowed to legally resist.Serbia’s justice ministry said on Wednesday that the deadline to take down the controversial monument in the town of Presevo had already passed at midnight the …

Police have detained a man suspected of destroying Serbian Orthodox graves in Kosovo Polje but insisted that he wasn’t motivated by ethnic hatred.A police statement said that a 48-year-old man, named as M. Buzuku, an ethnic Ashkali, was arrested on Tuesday afternoon for allegedly vandalising more than 50 gravestones. Police …

EU-led talks between Belgrade and Pristina ended on Tuesday without much progress on a recent border management deal.Talks on implementing the “Integrated Border Management Agreement” and preparing for the next round of the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia on January 17 ended inconclusively on Tuesday. Following a meeting of the …

The highest number of people who sought asylum in Germany in 2012 came from Serbia, recent German foreign ministry data show.Data from the German Foreign Ministry show that 8,477 of the 64,539 people who requested asylum in Germany in 2012 came from Serbia, ranking the country first in the list …