Kosovo approves deal to improve ties with Serbia
Source: Agencies |
June 28, 2013, Friday
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KOSOVO'S parliament approved an EU-brokered agreement on creating normal ties with neighboring Serbia yesterday as protesters opposing the deal clashed with riot police in Pristina.
The 120-seat assembly passed the deal, reached under European Union auspices in April, with 84 votes in favor.
Police used pepper spray to disperse protesters and pushed them away from the entrance to parliament and other government buildings in the capital. Some demonstrators threw cans of pink paint at police.
Police said 17 officers were wounded and around 70 protesters arrested in the scuffle.
The protest was staged by Vetevendosje, an opposition party that objects to the deal with Serbia, which it says would create an autonomous Serb region within Kosovo that would cripple the young country's sovereignty and cement ethnic partition.
The US embassy called the protest "violent tactics in obstructing the democratic process." Protesters tried to stop US Ambassador Tracey Jacobson from entering parliament, but police and bodyguards escorted her inside.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told legislators that achieving normal relations with Serbia would be complicated, but he would pursue talks with Belgrade.
"The independence road is irreversible and the process of normalizing relations between the two independent countries is unavoidable," he declared.
The agreement, which will allow Serbia and Kosovo to start moving closer to EU membership, is designed to end the ethnic partition of majority-Albanian Kosovo, five years after the territory of 1.7 million seceded from Serbia. Serbia lost control of Kosovo in 1999, when NATO bombed for 11 weeks to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians.
The 120-seat assembly passed the deal, reached under European Union auspices in April, with 84 votes in favor.
Police used pepper spray to disperse protesters and pushed them away from the entrance to parliament and other government buildings in the capital. Some demonstrators threw cans of pink paint at police.
Police said 17 officers were wounded and around 70 protesters arrested in the scuffle.
The protest was staged by Vetevendosje, an opposition party that objects to the deal with Serbia, which it says would create an autonomous Serb region within Kosovo that would cripple the young country's sovereignty and cement ethnic partition.
The US embassy called the protest "violent tactics in obstructing the democratic process." Protesters tried to stop US Ambassador Tracey Jacobson from entering parliament, but police and bodyguards escorted her inside.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told legislators that achieving normal relations with Serbia would be complicated, but he would pursue talks with Belgrade.
"The independence road is irreversible and the process of normalizing relations between the two independent countries is unavoidable," he declared.
The agreement, which will allow Serbia and Kosovo to start moving closer to EU membership, is designed to end the ethnic partition of majority-Albanian Kosovo, five years after the territory of 1.7 million seceded from Serbia. Serbia lost control of Kosovo in 1999, when NATO bombed for 11 weeks to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians.
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