Serbia's First Albanian-Language Newspaper to Open

The news website Presheva Jone (Our Preshevo) will soon launch a newspaper in Albanian under the same name with a daily circulation of 1,000 copies, Serbian website Juzne vesti (Southern News) reported on Monday.

"Ambitious plans mean that after the south of Serbia, the newspapers will also be distributed in the future in Macedonia, Kosovo and in Western European countries where a large number of Albanians live," the report said. 

The Presheva Jone website was founded in November 2010 and is the only news agency in the Albanian language in the southern Serbian towns of Medvedja, Bujanovac, Presevo and Vranje, it says.

According to its website, it is "independently and politically unconnected".

It claims to be a partner of media freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders, the Belgian Federation of Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists and the OSCE.

Presevo and Bujanovac are municipalities on Serbia's border with Kosovo where the majority of inhabitants are ethnic Albanians.

In Medvedja, which also borders Kosovo, ethnic Albanians make up 26 per cent of the population. 

Vranje is a town in southern Serbia where 0.02 per cent of the population and ethnic Albanians and the majority are Serbs. 

Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja were the scene of an armed conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgents and Serbian security forces in 2000.

The conflict lasted six months, and ended through mediation by NATO and the international community.

The Serbian government set up the Coordination Body for Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja in 2000 in an attempt to calm tensions and later to aid the economic recovery of the region.