Kosovo Serbs Urged to Aid Bombing Probes

Bernd Borchardt, head of the EU rule of law mission, EULEX, has urged Serbs in the Serb-run northern part of Kosovo to cooperate more closely with EULEX and Kosovo Police in finding the perpetrators of recent bomb attacks.

“No police service can be successful without cooperation and the help of the whole of society,” Borchardt said.

He said EU and Kosovo police had significantly increased their presence in the northern part of the town of Mitrovica owing to the frequency of bomb attacks.

“Every night, together with members of Kosovo police, we search certain motor vehicles and question individuals," he said.

Since the end of the Kosovo conflict in the late 1990s, the north of Kosovo has been beyond the  de facto control of the Kosovo government, while Serbia has continued to finance local security, judicial, health and educational institutions.

While Kosovo wants Serbia to dismantle its so-called "parallel" structures in the north, Serbia insists on broad autonomy being offered for all Serb-populated areas in Kosovo first.

Meanwhile, the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is due to meet Kosovo and Serbian leaders ahead of the seventh round of prime ministerial talks in Brussels.

On Monday, Ashton is to meet the Serbian President, Tomislav Nikolic, the Prime Minister, Ivica Dacic, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Aleksander Vucic.

On Thursday, Ashton plans to visit Kosovo to meet the Kosovo Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, and the leaders of political parties.

The seventh meeting of the prime ministers of Kosovo and Serbia, taking place within the framework of the EU-mediated dialogue, will be on March 20 in Brussels.

Dacic and Thaci are expected to flesh out the modalities of dismantling Serbian-financed "parallel" institutions in the Serb-run north of Kosovo and discuss the future operations of an "Association of Serbian Municipalities" in Kosovo, which the Kosovo authorities have agreed to endorse.