Members of the Italian Armed Forces, part of the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, stand near a roadblock in the northern part of the ethnically-divided town of Mitrovica. /Florion Goga/Reuters
Kosovo re-opened its biggest border crossing with Serbia on Thursday, hours after protesting Serbs in its north promised to remove roadblocks, easing a surge in tensions that has alarmed world powers.
Both the European Union and the U.S. have been pressing Pristina and Belgrade to step back from a mounting confrontation that has seen Serbia's army on the highest combat alert.
Serbs in northern Kosovo, who have been erecting roadblocks since December 10 in protest at the arrest of a former Serb policeman – the latest in a long series of flashpoints – agreed to start taking them down after he was moved to house arrest.
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Many of the roadblocks still appeared to be in place on Thursday morning, though officials had said the process might take some time.
Despite the breakthrough, tensions remained high on Thursday. Two burned-out trucks filled with gravel stood on a bridge close to the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, some 50 kilometers from the reopened Merdare crossing. Kosovo police said they were investigating an arson attack.
Kosovo police said they had reopened the Merdare crossing – the most important for road freight that links landlocked Kosovo with western European countries – after roadblocks came down on the Serbian side of the border.
They called on people from the diaspora to use the crossing, which was closed at midnight on Tuesday, to come home for the holidays.
Two other border crossings with Serbia in Kosovo's north remain closed since December 10.
The Kosovo recognition question
Around 50,000 Serbs living in northern Kosovo refuse to recognize the government in Pristina or the status of Kosovo as a separate country. They have the support of many Serbs in Serbia and its government.
Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence with the backing of the West following a 1998-99 war in which NATO intervened in its fight against the Belgrade government. Kosovo was placed under transitional UN administration after the war.
However, global recognition of Kosovo as an independent state is still very far from universal. Its independence is only recognized by 11 of the G20 countries and three of the five UN Security Council countries with veto power; it is not formally recognized by the United Nations.