Mitrovica

Two women cross the main bridge of the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, 3 September 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

On Friday, Erden Atiq, a local Vetevendosje leader in mainly Serb North Mitrovica, spoke about a potential agreement between the Albanian parties to field a single mayoral candidate for the October 17 local elections.

"The situation is not positive [and] I hope that it will be solved quite soon," he told BIRN in an interview.

Szunyog reiterated that the process led by the European Commission had concluded that Kosovo had met all of the conditions for visa-free travel into the EU's passport-free Schengen zone.

Since the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue was resumed in the wake of Kurti taking office as Kosovo's premier earlier this year, there have been no improvements in relations and been little or no progress in implementing agreements already made over the past decade of negotiations.

The trial for the murder of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic opened on Tuesday at Pristina Basic Court with the prosecution saying it will prove that the defendants participated in removing obstacles to the killing, abused their official positions and collaborated with the killers, who have not yet been arrested.

The remains of three victims of the Kosovo war, exhumed last year from mass graves, were reburied on Friday at a graveyard in the northern city of Mitrovica.

The remains of 18 people who disappeared during the Kosovo war were identified in Serbia from 2016 to 2020, while another 32 missing persons were identified in Kosovo, says a new report published on Tuesday by the Belgrade-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights, YIHR and the Mitrovica-based New Social Initiative.

Three years ago, on January 16, when unknown perpetrators fired six bullets into the body of Kosovo Serb opposition party leader Oliver Ivanovic in front of his office in the town of Mitrovica, people in Serbia and Kosovo were stunned, while Western diplomats feared that the murder of another politician in the Balkans could end the fragile dialogue to normalise relations between Belgrade and Pr

The prosecution in Kosovo said it was investigating how COVID-19 vaccines had reached the Serb-run north of the country from Serbia without the knowledge of the country's own institutions, the Chief Prosecutor in the municipality of Mitrovica, Shyqyri Syla, told BIRN on Monday.

Many topics, little consensus

Pedestrians walk in the Serb dominated northern part of the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

Reports of an outbreak of new COVID-19 cases in Serb-run northern Kosovo have sparked in-fighting among politicians in Kosovo and accusations of negligence.

On Sunday, the main hospital in the Serb-run north, in the divided town of Mitrovica, confirmed 26 cases in the three northern municipalities of Mitrovica North, Zvecan and Leposavic.