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No Kosovo official will be getting US visas – report (BETA, B92)

The US won't be granting entry visas to any Kosovo officials after Pristina's refusal to revoke or suspend taxes on goods from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is being reported on Thursday by Prisina based Albanian language website lajmi.net.

According to this, Washington with this began to apply concrete measures against officials of Kosovo after the decision of the Haradinaj government to keep the taxes in force. Analyst Arton Demhasaj thinks this is a form of "pressure to convince the Kosovo Government to make a decision to abolish or suspend the taxes."

He is also "not certain on how the government of Kosovo will be able to oppose US and EU demands."

Demhasaj assessed that the US has understood the trade barrier issue "very seriously" and added that other, heavier Washington sanctions could be imposed on the institutions of Kosovo.

The US has demanded a suspension of taxes from Kosovo in order to give the opportunity to continue the dialogue on the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, while Prime Minister Haradinaj is determined not to withdraw the taxes without the guarantees from Washington and Brussels that the outcome of the final comprehensive legally binding agreement between Belgrade and Pristina will be Serbia's "recognition of Kosovo."