Kosovo

JARINJE, Kosovo, Oct 2 - Kosovo's border crossing with Serbia was reopened on Saturday as Serbs removed trucks and cars and NATO troops moved in under a European Union-mediated deal to end a dispute between the neighbouring countries over car licence plates.

Kosovo special police forces withdrew from the border crossing in the north of the country nearly two weeks after Serbs blocked roads to protest at Kosovo's decision to introduce temporary licence plates for all cars from Serbia.

PRISTINA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Albania has accepted a U.S. request to temporarily take in Afghan refugees seeking visas to enter the United States, Prime Minister Edi Rama said on Sunday, as Taliban forces entered the Afghan capital Kabul.

Rama said U.S. President Joe Biden's administration had recently asked fellow NATO member Albania to assess whether it could serve as a transit country for a number of Afghan refugees whose final destination is the United States.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Lawmakers in Kosovo elected and swore in a new president Sunday for a five-year term, the Balkan nation’s second female leader in the post-war period.

The 120-seat parliament, which convened in an extraordinary session for two days, gave 71 votes for Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, the former parliament speaker, in the third round of voting, while 11 votes were invalid.

Two opposition parties and the ethnic Serb minority party boycotted the voting.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s newly-elected parliament held its first session Monday and is expected to nominate the country’s new prime minister.

The new parliament comes after the Feb. 14 election in which Albin Kurti’s left-wing Self-Determination Movement, or Vetevendosje!, won the most votes, but the party still needs the votes of non-Serb minority parties to create a new Cabinet. Vetevendosje! won 58 out of the parliament’s 120 seats.

After their swearing-in, the new lawmakers voted to elect the new speaker, Glauk Konjufca of Vetevendosje!, and his deputies.

16 Mar 2021; MEMO: The Jordanian Foreign Ministry yesterday condemned the inauguration of Kosovo's embassy to Israel in the occupied city of Jerusalem, Anadolu news agency reported.

Foreign Ministry spokesman, Dhaifallah Al-Fayez, described the inauguration as "a blatant and grave breach of international law and international legitimacy resolutions."

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo is holding an early parliamentary election to form a new government amid the coronavirus pandemic, an economic downturn and stalled negotiations with wartime foe Serbia.

Some 1.8 million eligible voters on Sunday started to cast their ballots in 2,400 polling stations. They’re electing 120 lawmakers among more than 1,000 candidates from 28 political groupings. Some 100,000 Kosovars in diaspora are also eligible to vote by post.

Those infected by the coronavirus will be able to vote through mobile polling teams.

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo President Hashim Thaci resigned with immediate effect on Thursday after learning that the Kosovo war crimes tribunal had confirmed his indictment for war crimes.

“I resign today from the position of president,” Thaci told a news conference in the Kosovo capital Pristina, adding that his sources had informed him that the judge at the Kosovo Specialist Chamber in The Hague had confirmed his indictment.

05 Sep 2020; MEMO: Israel and Kosovo have agreed to establish diplomatic ties and Kosovo, along with Serbia, will open embassies in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu’s statement came shortly after US President Donald Trump made a similar announcement in Washington, where he met with leaders of Serbia and Kosovo as they agreed to normalize economic ties between them.

PRISTINA, June 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Kosovo President Hashim Thaci said he would resign if a war crimes indictment filed by prosecutors last week is confirmed by a special tribunal in The Hague.

“If the charges are confirmed, I will immediately resign as your President and face the accusations,” Thaci said in a national address about allegations linked to his role as political leader of a rebel army during Kosovo’s 1998-99 war with Serbia.

“I will not face justice from this office.”

PRISTINA, June 26 (NNN-AGENCIES) — As Kosovo President Hashim Thaci rushed home on Thursday  to face accusations of war crimes from the 1990s conflict with Serbia, Kosovars defended the “just war” that paved their path to independence.

Thaci was the former political leader of the ethnic Albanian guerilla group, the KLA, which launched a rebellion against Belgrade more than 20 years ago when Kosovo was a southern province of Serbia.