Kosovo

It was a snowy day in December 1998 and Besnik Rustemi's family was waiting for their village of Slivove/Slivovo to come under fire.

Rustemi, then six years old, was playing in his neighbours' yard with a friend. Meanwhile, his new rubber boots were waiting for him in his bedroom, ready to be worn whenever his family decided it was time to flee.

A lone pedestrian walks through an empty park in the Romanian capital amid the global novel coronavirus pandemic. Photo: EPA-EFE/Robert Ghement.

A Romanian woman wearing a protective face mask waits at a bus stop in central Bucharest on March 26, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/Robert Ghement.

In this endeavour, Thaci is believed to have secured support US President Donald Trump's envoy for Serbia-Kosovo peace negotiations, Richard Grenell. A man of many titles - he is also the acting Director of National Intelligence and the US ambassador to Germany - Grenell has denied that the partition of Kosovo has been discussed in secret as part of the rumoured peace deal.

All that remained for citizens to make their voices heard was to express their displeasure at the political tragedy by banging pots and pans from their balconies in the evening during the partial lockdown.

Good intentions, bad performance:

Ramush Haradinaj in Pristina, Kosovo, 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

The US Special Envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell, the US Ambassador to Kosovo, Philip Kosnett, and the US Special Representative for the Western Balkans, Matthew Palmer, have dismissed claims made by outgoing Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti that the Presidents of Kosovo and Serbia had reached a secret agreement on a land swap with their knowledge as part of a final deal on

The Impossible

The coronavirus seems to be doing the impossible - making Balkan politicians put petty squabbles on hold and act like statesmen, prioritising the public interest - particularly public health - in an effort to stem the pandemic. In most cases, at least.

The director of Serbia's Government Office for Kosovo, Marko Djuric, has called on Srpska Lista [Serbian List], the Belgrade-backed political option in Kosovo, to stay out of what he called the "Albanian-Albanian" political conflict in the country.

The overthrow of the Kosovo government under Albin Kurti on Wednesday night has created a fluid political situation, similar to that after the last election, creating the need for the formation of a new government, without excluding the possibility of new elections.

With COVID-19 spreading, Kosovo's government falls amid rifts over the future of talks with Serbia.

The Kosovo government led by Albin Kurti was overthrown on Wednesday by a no-confidence motion initiated by the junior party in the governing coalition, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK.