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News ID: 50227
Publish Date : 18 February 2018 - 20:39

Kosovo Marks Independence From Serbia

PRISTINA (Dispatches) -- Kosovo on Sunday celebrated a decade since declaring independence, a moment of pride for its ethnic Albanian majority, although sovereignty remains fiercely contested by Serbia.
Thousands of Kosovars packed the main square of the capital, which was covered in the blue and yellow colors of the flag for a weekend of festivities, to mark the occasion.
In 1998, a war broke out between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian rebels and Serbian troops that left 13,000 people dead, most of them Albanians. Belgrade withdrew its forces the following year after a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia.
Kosovo subsequently became a United Nations protectorate and declared independence from Belgrade on February 17, 2008.
"The state of Kosovo has upheld the people’s demand for freedom,” Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said in a special government session in Pristina on Feb. 17.
But "we are aware that citizens’ expectations for a modern state have not yet been fulfilled.”
Although more than 110 countries have recognized Kosovo’s independence in the past 10 years, Serbia and dozens of other states have not.
Sovereignty is rejected by Russia, whose Security Council veto prevents Kosovo from joining the United Nations, and five EU countries including Spain and Greece.
Kosovo’s unemployment rate of around 30% - and 50% among young people - has led tens of thousands to move abroad in search of work over the past decade.
Home to 1.8 million people, Kosovo is one of the poorest parts of Europe and hugely dependent on remittances from its diaspora to drive economic growth of around four percent.
"Our expectations have not been met at all,” said retired teacher Pashk Desku, 66. "I am afraid that instead of improving, the situation could get worse,” he told AFP.
On Feb. 16, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian schoolchildren began the day with lessons dedicated to the anniversary.
But this was not the case in the separate education system of Kosovo’s Serb minority, which remains loyal to Belgrade. The two ethnic communities rarely mix.

In the Serb part of the divided northern city of Mitrovica, black-and-white posters appeared on Feb. 17 lamenting "10 years of occupation,” with pictures of hands in cuffs.
The "normalization” of ties between Belgrade and Pristina is crucial to both sides’ bids to join the European Union.