LOCAL PRESS

Vucic: I do not and will not give Gazivode (B92)

Speaking about the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, Vucic told the press conference that one must always “leave room to talk about,” and that “after the last meeting on Tuesday the deal was not to go public with the details.” “I gave my word that this would not happen and there was nothing in any of our media,” he asserted, and added: “There were no unnamed sources, nor anything similar. Hashim Thaci talked about it tonight, of course he was not telling the truth.”

According to Vucic, “the bridge over the Ibar River (in Kosovska Mitrovica) was not talked about at all on Tuesday – nor was the issue of energy. “I halted the talk about energy when I said I did not want to hear about them trying to take Serb property. Now they say – it is about to be signed. Oh, seriously? Maybe, if you replace me by then. I’m not going to sign it for you for as long as I live,” said Vucic. The Prime Minister also stated he “had no interest in the threats” and that the topic of the bridge on the Ibar was “invented in order to, I guess, find another way to pressure Serbs.”

According to him, “we expect progress on the European path,” while “we could only lose face by our own decisions, not by someone else, if we do not act honorably and responsibly.”

“I do not and will not give Gazivode,” he said of the lake and the hydro-power complex named after it, and added: “I was elected by citizens of Serbia and I answer to them, not to foreign embassies. My job is to take care of the government and the assets of Serbia,” said Vucic, stating that “people, whether they like me or not, can see how much we work.”

PM: Belgrade respects deal made in Brussels, unlike Pristina (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said that Belgrade has kept its word given during the recent negotiations with Pristina in Brussels that details of the process should not be disclosed to the public until the forthcoming resumption of the dialogue, while Pristina has not done that.

Vucic told a special press conference held at the Serbian government building late Thursday that, at the proposal of EU High Representave Federica Mogherini, the mediator in these negotiations, it was agreed that the public should not be informed about the content of the talks. Serbian media reports show that Belgrade has not let anything get to the public, not even by referring to unnamed sources, Vucic said, asking if this means that only Belgrade should keep its word. The prime minister said that, after different statements have been made, it has to be said that the talks on energy were suspended the moment it became obvious “they are trying to take Serbia’s property,” while Pristina now claims that an agreement on the issue is about to be signed. This can happen, but only if I am dismissed and if someone else if found to do it by that time. I will never sign this and make Serbia’s property become the property of Kosovo, the prime minister pointed out.

Switzerland to extradite Oric to B&H (B92, N1 TV)

Former commander of Muslim units in Srebrenica and former Hague inductee Naser Oric will be extradited to Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), N1 is reporting. The decision was made under shortened procedure, the federal justice office of Switzerland has confirmed for this outlet.

Oric was arrested in Switzerland on June 10 on a Serbian war crimes warrant. Serbia last week requested his extradition. The warrant was issued in 2014, on suspicion that Oric committed war crimes against Serb civilians in the Srebrenica area in 1992. Faculty of Law Professor Milan Skulic said earlier in the day that B&H’s motives to also request his extradition were “suspicions” – considering that Sarajevo only announced it was conducting an investigation after Serbia requested Oric’s extradition. “It seems that the motive of the Bosnian request is to prevent his extradition to Serbia,” commented Skulic. The Serbian request was announced on June 21, and a day later the Prosecution of B&H said it was conducting an investigation in the Naser Oric et al. case, and that it was launched in 2006.

Oric’s legal representative Vasvija Vidovic told the Sarajevo-based daily Dnevni Avaz on Thursday that her client was “now a free man.” Previously, the Hague Tribunal found Oric guilty on one count of the indictment it raised against him and sentenced him to two years in prison for “indirect responsibility for killing seven and torturing 11 Serb prisoners” in 1992 and 1993. But the Hague Chamber of Appeals acquitted him of all charges saying that “while serious crimes had been committed against Serbs in Srebrenica from September 1992 until March 1993” – the fact that crimes had been committed was “not enough to sentence an individual.” Ahead of his Hague trial, the media reported that during 1992 and 1993 he led attacks on more than 50 Serb villages in the areas of Brantunac and Srebrenica. Before the latter fell to the Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, Oric “and his associates” were evacuated by helicopter to the territory held by the Army of B&H.

Vucic: Decision on Oric is political, Serbia not to change policy (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic stated that Switzerland’s decision to extradite former Bosnian Muslim commander Naser Oric to Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) rather than Serbia is politically motivated, but stressed this will not change Serbia’s policy and its attitude towards neighbors. At a special press conference held late Thursday, Vucic said he will continue to advocate regional peace and stability, adding that Serbia’s relation towards the Bosniak people will not alter because of one man. “Serbia wants peace and stability in the region and our policy will not change after this difficult occurrence for our people, because we are looking to the future and thinking about the future, and not because we are weak,” he noted. The decision on Oric’s extradition to B&H is everything but fair, the prime minister stressed.”There are occasions after which there is a feeling of nausea and occasions when the nausea serves as a lesson. Oric’s extradition belongs to the second – causing nausea, but the edifying one, especially for us Serbs. Serbia will know how to learn from this lesson as well,” Vucic said. For Serbs, this lesson means that the war crimes issue is not always a matter of justice but of politics, he concluded.

Meeting of Serbian, RS presidents and PMs starts (Tanjug)

A meeting of presidents and prime ministers of Serbia and Republika Srpska (RS) started at noon on Friday ahead of a joint session of two governments. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, RS President Milorad Dodik and Prime Ministers Aleksandar Vucic and Zeljka Cvijanovic will also discuss Srebrenica and the “case” of Naser Oric, Tanjug said it learned. The agency said that the wartime commander of Muslim forces in the Srebrenica region was arrested in Switzerland on June 10 on an arrest warrant issued against him by the Interpol office in Serbia for crimes committed against Serbs in 1992, and that “without dealing with the meritum of the case, the Berne Federal Office of Justice decided on Thursday to extradite him to Bosnia and Herzegovina.” The two governments last held a joint session in September 2014, when they agreed that progress had been made in cooperation in all fields, and agreed to form a coordinating body tasked with implementing joint development of agricultural and food processing production and industry. During his an extraordinary press conference late on Thursday, Vucic said the two governments will discuss projects related to infrastructure and economic ties. He announced that Serbia will provide greater support to the Serb entity in B&H, in particular in the fourth quarter of this year. “If the RS encounters certain difficulties and wants and requests it to, Serbia will be prepared to help also through commodity loans and in other ways,” Vucic noted, Tanjug reported.

Greek PM Tsipras invited to visit Belgrade (Tanjug)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Thursday invited his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras to visit Serbia. Vucic, who received Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias in Belgrade, also thanked the Greek government for its unchanged position on Kosovo. Greece does not recognize ethnic Albanians’ unilateral proclamation of independence of the province.

Vucic stressed during the conversation that Serbia sees Greece as a sincere friend, “and follows with great attention the goings on” in the economy sphere. The two officials discussed cooperation in the fields of energy and trade, the government’s media relations office said. Kotzias said he arrived to Serbia as a friend, and that his country wants to help Serbia become an EU member state, and offers full support for the first negotiation chapters to be opened as soon as possible. “Our experience in negotiations with the EU is good and we will be glad to share it. If we work together, we can help Europe be better in negotiations with Serbia,” Kotzias said, adding that Tsipras could visit Serbia in July or September this year. During the meeting, the officials concluded that the two countries will step up the cooperation in all fields, and agreed to form a joint technical group that will deal with economic issues. It was also announced that Greece would support the holding of a Balkans conference on migration that should give the region an opportunity to find a common solution to the problem. Earlier in the day, Kotzias met with his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic.

REGIONAL PRESS

Dodik: Serbia must not allow Republika Srpska to lose its strength (Srna)

Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik said late on Thursday that the Serbs as a nation find themselves in a delicate historic, political situation, that they must become homogenized again and that Serbia must not allow Republika Srpska (RS) to lose its strength. “Only great nations can have two states, and the Serbs have two – Serbia and RS. Only great nations can build a big city such as Belgrade, by city planning, culture, education and power,” Dodik told a public debate of the Serbian Cultural Society “Prosveta”. Dodik said that the Serb people had never hesitated to do what was necessary to secure the preconditions for its identity, under the circumstances of the struggle for identity being the main problem of today. He said that the specific position that the RS finds itself in “never stopped me from feeling like the president of the state that has a much richer history than perhaps many other sovereign states.” “I often wandered what my strength was after all that I had been through. I can say that my strength was my conviction and my love – the love for the Serb people and the conviction that RS was the only real cause for the political engagement and survival of the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Dodik. He assessed that many of the Serb delusions in the recent political history cost the Serb people dearly, the biggest of them being pro-Yugoslav leanings, when the Serb people sacrificed to create a big state while others “cut its legs”. Dodik pointed out that those who had benefited from pro-Yugoslav leanings abandoned the idea, while the Serbs stuck to it, showing once again their historic delusion and political masochism. In the former Yugoslavia, he said, the Serbs were the people that suffered the most, from Slovenia where they were a marginal minority, to Croatia from which they were expelled and ethnically cleansed, to Bosnia and Herzegovina where in places they lived in large numbers, like in Sarajevo, they were reduced to 4 or 5 percent of the pre-war population. Dodik also said that Montenegro uses everything allowed and disallowed to devalue the importance of the Serb people “via the talk of Kosovo which has reduced the Serbs to a dramatically marginal minority” and Macedonia where one of the strong elements of Serb identity – the Serbian Orthodox Church – is subjected to denial and persecution of priests. He added that in Serbia too, “there are attempts to make the Serbs a mass of people that are supposed to perform tasks until some bright future of a big power center which is defined and imposed as the biggest request for self-destruction.”

“The Serbs must become homogenized again in their identity and political demands and future aspirations. We have abandoned that term because it had negative connotations and because it used to be said that if we homogenized as a nation, we wanted war,” said Dodik. He said that was not true. “In that way the Serbs want to have a future that implies awareness of where we are, what we do, who we are, where we are going and how we defend ourselves. That’s the kind of homogenization we need,” emphasized Dodik. In his opinion, no one has given any serious support to the Serbs and their strategic goals over the past 20 years, except for some individuals. “We do not have a social institute either in Serbia or in RS that can reflect the collective desire and project our goals in the future,” he said. Underscoring that there were many challenges ahead, Dodik said that Serbia must not allow RS to lose its strength. “Serbia is a signatory to the Dayton Peace Accords and it can call the high representative to account because he was established by Annex 10 of the Accords, not the decisions of the UN Security Council,” said Dodik. The Serbs have to integrate with others too, he said. “We have to integrate with others with the power of our identity which must not be provocative for anyone, rather be what it is – the people with a strong tradition, strong potential, the people that can give answers, the people that helped others through history and gave them freedom, like we did for the Croats,” said Dodik.

Dodik: Oric’s extradition to B&H proved the B&H judicial authority is not needed (Srna)

Republika Srpska (RS) President Milorad Dodik has stated that the decision by the Swiss authorities to extradite a Muslim wartime commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, to Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) is another humiliation of the Serb war victims and evidence that no one needs the judicial authority at the B&H level. Dodik has confirmed that, as an authorized proponent in the RS Parliament, he will make a proposition next week that the people should declare on the B&H Court and the Prosecutor’s Office, because it is known these institutions are imposed beyond the Constitution. “This Prosecutor’s Office defends criminals who committed crimes against Serbs trying to process everyone from RS only for being a member of the Army of RS,” Dodik told reporters in Belgrade on Thursday evening. He stressed that no one needs judicial authority at the B&H level and that the Oric case is additional evidence proving that the Prosecutor’s Office abused the procedure allowing Oric’s extradition to B&H, as in the cases of Ejup Ganic and Jovan Divjak.

“This will be followed by his release,” Dodik said. He pointed out that Oric was undoubtedly the criminal against whom the sufficient grounds for a verdict related to his involvement in war crimes were presented before the Prosecutor’s Office in Bijeljina in 2008, in 600 cases, documents and witness statements. “However, the B&H Prosecutor’s Office has prevented the investigation and there have not been any developments in case since 2009. Nothing has been launched in addition to a standing procedure, which the Prosecutor’s Office misused because it was a ground to submit extradition request,” Dodik said. Dodik stressed that everything related to Oric case tells about the absurdity of B&H and how meaninglessness it is, the place where the Serbs cannot obtain the justice for their victims, and where the imposition of collective responsibility of Serbs is attempted.

“Naser Oric was a part of an international concept to blame the Serbs for everything. He has not been brought to justice for what he did. His command responsibility was removed in The Hague, while the Serbs were tried only for command responsibility,” said Dodik. According to him, this proves how the court in The Hague is unfair and that it was created just to be a political court.

The RS President said that especially in Oric case, the behavior of the Serbs representatives in the joint institutions should be re-examined in order to make things clear. “Voice of the Serb representatives have not been heard when Bakir Izetbegovic suggested to break B&H into six parts. Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Denis Zvizdic, sent a message that B&H should do everything to bring Oric back to B&H. If the Serbs representatives gave their consent for it and if they accepted it, we must demand accountability,” Dodik concluded.

Ivanic: Division policy continues with disastrous consequences (Srna)

The Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), Mladen Ivanic, told Srna that the decision by the Swiss authorities to extradite a war crimes suspect, Naser Oric, to B&H will really take B&H backwards and the fragile trust that began to develop will be seriously jeopardized.

“When I add developments related to the resolution on Srebrenica to the aforementioned, altogether it is bad. This will additionally develop distrust within the judicial authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina because I doubt they will initiate a case against Oric. They (judicial authorities) helped to acquit him. Division policy continues with disastrous consequences and extremely poor ambient,” Ivanic said. In his opinion, the entire story about Oric was extremely poor and it created an ambient which brings B&H back in the past, which obviously serves to affirmation and presentation of a completely different war image. “One side is innocent in this image – the Bosniaks’ side, no one from this side can be charged and it serves Bosniak politicians to behave triumphantly,” Ivanic said. Swiss Federal Department of Justice approved on Thursday, by simplified procedure, the extradition of Naser Oric to B&H, this office confirmed.

Oric was arrested on June 10 in Switzerland on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by Serbia on suspicion that he committed war crimes against the Serb population in Srebrenica in 1992.

SBB in HNK won’t enter government with SDA’s radical wing (Oslobodjenje)

The way out of the vicious circle when it comes to forming a government in Herzegovina-Neretva Canton (HNK) is still not in sight. The announced meeting in Mostar of HDZ and SDA negotiators was not held yesterday, and a new date is tomorrow, when the highest representatives of the two victorious parties in Herzegovina should sit together. However, while through the grapevine in the past few days the story has been about SBB support to assembly delegates in the HDZ and SDA, the real status on the ground seems to be not so great. The SBB cantonal board in HNK on Tuesday issued a statement in which it clearly stated that “coalition with the radical wing of the SDA is not an option.” By that, Radoncic’s party says, they would support the further isolation of B&H on its path to creating a pro-European country that would not be a Turkish appendage, nor fertile soil for spreading radical Middle Eastern ideas. Regardless of the aforementioned, the SBB has left room for speculation, given that in the recent past they never clearly said that they did not want to be part of government. The close relations between Fahrudin Radoncic and Dragan Covic, the support for the government in Central Bosnia Canton (SBK), and finally the recent support of the HDZ and SDA in the adoption of HNK’s budget for the coming year are matters that suggest the conclusion that the SBB could become an ally of the ruling coalition. Nevertheless, the SDA, we have learned, has sought refuge among the delegates of some other parties, including the DF, which recently dropped from the coalition. Elmir Sator, DF delegate, confirmed to us that there are indirect contacts on this question, but not official talks. The lone BPS delegate Adnan Velagic also confirmed that there was contact, adding that the “matter was transferred to party leadership,” as did one of the three HDZ 1990 delegates. “No one will jump from the party framework and I already know that no one from the HDZ 1990 would support a minority government,” said Ilija Cvitanovic, the party’s secretary-general. An additional problem for the SDA, according to unofficial information, is that inside the party they are not fully certain whether all SDA delegates support the government, because apparently among them there are those dissatisfied and willing to blackmail. Because of this, two safe hands from some third party does not mean exit from this vicious circle. Representatives of the HDZ B&H from the secure eleventh hand in the assembly wisely pushed responsibility to the SDA, which gives space to find two or more votes essential to confirming the government. In the event that the SDA succeeds in its intentions, departments would be divided on the 6 + 6 model, while in the event that the burden of finding a third party for the government falls to the HDZ, the party seeks for itself seven places in government – six departments and a premiership for Nevenko Herceg. “In that case we would have five chairs, while aside from the prime ministership that is ours, one ministry from the Serb quota would fall to an independent candidate,” said Rafael Gagro, president of the HDZ board of HNK. The SDA is not concerned. Edin Music, new president of the party’s HNK board, said that there are 20 delegates in the assembly that would support the government, but he did not wish to reveal the names of parties whose delegates would support the HDZ and SDA’s. According to individual claims, in the event that the SBB enters government, like the DF they would seek at minimum two portfolios, which could additionally complicate the matter and extend the soap opera to the autumn.

U.S. State Department: Political corruption among biggest problems in B&H (Nezavisne)

The U.S. State Department said government corruption remained among “most serious problems” in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) in 2014, which it says resulted in “continued political and economic stagnation.” In a new report, it also says some political leaders “manipulated deep-seated ethnic divisions” that weakened democracy and governance, undermined the rule of law, fostered discrimination in most aspects of daily life, distorted public discourse in the media, and obstructed the return of persons displaced by the 1992-95 conflict, according to RFE/RL. The U.S. State Department also strongly criticizes Islamic State (IS) militants, as well as the Russian, Iranian, and Azerbaijani governments, for human rights abuses. The 2014 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released on June 25, says one of the most notable trends of the year was the brutality of IS militants in Syria and Iraq against the Yezidi minority, Christians, Turkomans, Shabak, Shi’a, and Sunni Muslims who did not conform to their extremist views.

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

Bosnian Serb leader: Srebrenica was 20th century’s ‘greatest deception’ (Reuters, By Katharina Bart and Maja Zuvela, 25 June 2015)

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik called the 1995 Srebrenica massacre “the greatest deception of the 20th century” on Thursday in reaction to Swiss rejection of a Serbian extradition request for the Muslim wartime defender of the region. The remark appeared to be the strongest yet by Dodik casting doubt on what happened 20 years next month when Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces near the end of the 1992-95 war. More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were executed in the days that followed, bulldozed into mass graves then dug up and reburied in a systematic bid to conceal the worst atrocity on European soil since World War Two. The events that unfolded have been painstakingly pieced together in countless hours of testimony and investigation at a United Nations court in The Hague, but continue to be questioned by Serbs who dispute the death toll and say the whole event has become politicized. The divergence reflects the depth of division that continues to dog Bosnia and frustrates efforts to foster a sense of national unity. Dodik was reacting to an announcement by Swiss authorities that they would extradite Naser Oric, who led Muslim Bosniak forces in the Srebrenica region during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, to Bosnia, rather than Serbia, following his arrest two weeks ago in Switzerland. Serbia and the Bosnian Serbs say Oric’s men killed Serb civilians around Srebrenica earlier in the war, before its fall to Bosnian Serb forces. Oric was found guilty of war crimes in 2006 by a United Nations court in The Hague, but was acquitted on appeal in 2008. He was arrested in Switzerland on the basis of a Serbian warrant for war crimes issued in early 2014, but Bosnia also said it was pursuing a similar case against him. The Swiss justice office said priority had been given to the Bosnian handover request. “The decisive points here are the same criminal acts on which both requests are based were committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that Oric is a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” it said in a statement. There was no immediate reaction from Serbia, but Dodik, who is president of an autonomous mainly ethnic Serb region in Bosnia, was furious: “Naser Oric will remain a war criminal for me and all other Serbs,” the Srna news agency quoted him as saying. “The prosecution of Oric in Serbia would have brought to light hundreds of pieces of evidence and witnesses to the crimes committed against the Serbs in the Srebrenica region. This is why the Bosniak political elite regard Oric as the last line of defense for the greatest deception of the 20th century – the story about Srebrenica.” The U.N. court in The Hague has ruled the massacre constituted genocide, a term Serbs reject. Oric’s arrest had angered Muslim Bosniaks in Bosnia and threatened to derail the planned attendance of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic at next month’s 20th anniversary commemoration. Vucic called a press conference for 8 p.m. (1800 GMT). In Bosnia, Munira Subasic, the head of an association of women who lost relatives in the massacre, told Reuters: “This is the only fair decision.”

Voices from across Bosnia’s boundary line (National Geographic, by Cara Eckholm, 25 June 2015)

Supported by a National Geographic Young Explorers Grant, I’ve been exploring Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital that was besieged during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. It took nearly four years to end the violence, a feat that was achieved through a power sharing agreement between Bosnia’s ethnic groups called the Dayton Peace Accord. As we approach the 20th anniversary of Dayton, I’m learning how ethnic divides have affected the reconstruction of the city, as residents try to shape a new multicultural Bosnia. (Read all posts in this series.) The Dayton Accord brought relief to a battered nation. But the effect was also to physically sort out what remained of the population. Bosnia’s Muslims and Croats streamed into their new sub-state, the Federation, while the Serb population settled in its own, the Republika Srpska. While most of Sarajevo is in Bosnia’s Muslim and Croat territory, a suburb known as East Sarajevo falls just across the boundary in the Serb region. The groups thrive in their own strongholds, but returning to a mixed coexistence has proved more challenging. Before Friday prayer at the landmark Gazi Husrev-Bev mosque in Sarajevo’s old town, the interior fills to capacity and officials begin to hurl prayer mats across the courtyard, in a mad dash to accommodate the crowds before the clock strikes one. Dzemal Hrga, 65, a retired painter, watched from the corner on a stoop shaded by an ancient tree. With a crinkled expression and a few missing teeth, he told me that his family has been in Sarajevo for 700 years, and they have been coming to the mosque since it opened in 1531 during the Ottoman Era. “The painter that did this mosque also has work in Milan,” he proudly proclaimed. A cluster of men in their 30s with sharp suits strolled past us; another bearing a Yankee cap, probably no older than 18, struggled to untie his shoes. “My sons come here too, and so will their sons,” Mr. Hrga told me. Other groups may feel less of a loyalty to the city. At the Jesus Sacred Heart Cathedral, Daria Topic, 20, a Catholic dentistry student, said she hopes move to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, because in Sarajevo “people don’t take religion seriously.” The exodus is even more pronounced at the New Serbian Orthodox Church, where Vidosava, the elderly Serb woman from a previous post who feels unwelcome in Sarajevo, has watched the crowd dwindle since the war. “Now it is all just us retirees,” she explained with dismay. She has considered moving to the Republika Sprska, but said she is constrained by her familial ties to the old city. Serb culture is vibrant over the border in East Sarajevo, where street signs are in Cyrillic, in a departure from the Latin alphabet used in the rest of town. Danijela Mrda, 38, the principal at St. Sava primary school, described the area as a “city in progress,” built up by Serbs who left Sarajevo proper during or after the siege. Her school’s curriculum is set by the Republika Srpska Ministry of Education, and its language, history, and religion courses differ from those taught in the Federation.

The municipality has its own institute of higher education, the University of East Sarajevo. Renata Obrenovic, 26, a music theory student at the school, said that she has developed a comfortable social life in East Sarajevo and travels to Sarajevo only infrequently. But that journey is not particularly easy in either direction these days, as the Federation and the Republika Srspka have different programs of urban planning. Public transit ends in Sarajevo’s Dobrinja neighborhood, just before reaching East Sarajevo. The buses on the other side of the border are run by a separate company. Nasiha Pozder, an urban planner at the University of Sarajevo who lives in Dobrinja, said, “We live in the same city but we make our plans as if we live in separate countries.” We meandered along the main street near her house, cluttered with busy storefronts and cafes. Yet as we strolled further, activity diminished, the pavement eventually vanishing into a sea of grass. The sidewalk resumes a few meters further, across an invisible but almost palpable boundary line that still fragments the country.

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Media summaries are produced for the internal use of the United Nations Office in Belgrade, UNMIK and UNHQ. The contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership