|
 Up to 10,000 flag-waving protesters gathered in the divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, demanding that the EU-brokered agreement be annulled and branding the Serbian officials who endorsed it "traitors."
The Serbian government approved the deal unanimously at an extraordinary session and ordered ministries to implement it, said government spokesman Milivoje Mihajlovic. The agreement could end years of tensions and put the Balkan rivals on a path to European Union membership
The prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo reached a tentative EU-mediated deal in Brussels on Friday that would give Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership authority over rebel Kosovo Serbs. In return, the minority Serbs would get wide autonomy within Kosovo.
After the Serbian approval, the EU's executive Commission recommended on Monday that the bloc should start membership negotiations with Serbia. The Commission said in a report that
''Serbia has taken very significant steps towards visible and sustainable improvement in relations with Kosovo."
Kosovo, which is considered by nationalists to be the medieval cradle of the Serbian state and religion, declared independence in 2008. Serbia has vowed never to recognize it, and Serbian officials insist that the latest agreement does not mean Belgrade has de-facto recognized Kosovo's statehood.
It is not clear how the deal will be implemented on the ground in northern Kosovo where hardline Serb leaders vehemently reject any authority coming from Pristina's ethnic Albanians and consider the region a part of Serbia.
In Mitrovica, hardline Kosovo Serbs said they will prevent the implementation of the agreement and form their own, self-ruled region in the north.
On Sunday, Kosovo's parliament voted in favor of a resolution to support the initial agreement. The Serbian parliament is expected to do the same later this week.
[to top of second column] |
 The influential Serbian Orthodox Church on Monday, however, denounced the deal as a "clear surrender" of "our most important territory," and urged the country's lawmakers to reject it.
The church said in a statement that the deal amounts to "indirect and silent, but still de-facto recognition" of the Kosovo state.
The deal allows Serbs to police and manage the north of Kosovo, which is inhabited predominantly by ethnic Serbs, in exchange for nominal recognition of the authority of the Kosovo government. It also calls for the two sides not to obstruct one another as they seek eventual membership in the EU.
Serbia relinquished control of most of Kosovo in 1999 when NATO chased its troops out of the region after a three-month bombing campaign. Ending the partition of Kosovo between the Albanian majority and the Serb-controlled north
-- about a fifth of the country -- is a key condition of Serbia's further progress toward EU membership.
[Associated
Press; By DUSAN STOJANOVIC]
Associated Press writers
Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Raf Casert in Brussels and Zvezdan
Djukanovic in Kosovo contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
