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Balkans caught between the past and the future (Koha Ditore)

Brussels-based correspondent and columnist, Augustin Palokaj, remarks that last Friday, on the anniversary of Srebrenica massacre, leaders from the Balkans were taking part in a conference in Dubrovnik aimed at the region’s EU integration. Serbian Foreign Minister, Ivica Dacic, failed to condemn the Srebrenica atrocities in his address and instead focused on what the EU should do to sanction its member states which do not respect European values.

An interpretation of an uninterpreted interpretation (Koha Ditore)

Lumir Abdixhiku considers that the Constitutional Court only produced more confusion at the time when everyone was expecting its clarification on the issue of the candidate for creation of the future government. “The Constitutional Court allowed each party to interpret its verdict in the way they pleased, creating a typical Kosovar tangle,” he writes.

In three months, 32 families repatriated (Koha Ditore)

32 families from the Albanian, Serb and Roma communities have been repatriated in the Municipality of Gjilan/Gnjilane in the first three months of 2014. Of these 32 families, 21 are from Albanian community, 8 from Serb and 3 from Roma community. Officials from the municipality they are working on return of displaced persons who are currently living in difficult conditions.

Secret code: “Peace Park” (Koha Ditore)

KTV’s editor-in-chief Adriatik Kelmendi says that it seems the Serb leadership in the north of Kosovo has adopted a new formula: “We will not apply Serbia’s laws anymore but now we will break those of Kosovo”. One of the first acts guided by this formula, according to Kelmendi, is giving a new name to the barricade that prevents free movement and calling it park.

UN experts continue with their fact-finding mission in Kosovo (kohaonline)

The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances continues today with its visit to Kosovo, in a fact finding mission for the missing persons.

The three members of the Working Group, Mr. Ariel Dulitzky, Ms. Jasminka Dzumhur, and Mr. Osman el-Hajjé, met yesterday with President Jahjaga, the Working Group for the Missing and Government Commission for the Missing Persons.

Embellishment of Mitrovica’s division (Koha Ditore)

Augustin Palokaj writes in a column for the paper that people in Kosovo are becoming increasingly agitated when they hear leaders promising something will happen ‘very soon’. They have been hearing the term used for many years now with regards to the visa liberalization and to European integrations. Most recently, they heard the notion being applied to the removal of the new barricade in Mitrovica.

S.D., an Albanian – the true hero of the barricade (Koha Ditore)

KTV editor-in-chief Adriatik Kelmendi writes that he was contacted a month ago by a Kosovo Albanian from Peja, with the initials S.D., who told him that he can remove the barricade over the Iber/Ibar River. S.D. said he was staying in Montenegro when he met a friend of a friend, who happened to be a member of the Bridge Watchers, who told him that he had built the barricade and that he is the only one who can remove it but that he would need guarantees from international representatives in Pristina. S.D.

One barricade replaces another in Mitrovica (dailies)

Koha Ditore reports on the front page that the barricade on the main bridge over the Iber/Ibar River was removed only temporarily. Serbs replaced it with another barricade which they called the Peace Park. Throughout this action, Kosovo Police elite units only served as spectators. Municipal and central authorities all rushed to claim credit for the removal of the barricade, but when another one was built, all remained silent.