Former prosecutor Maria Bamieh said Brussels’ report on the handling of her allegations of corruption within the EU’s Kosovo rule-of-law mission did not prove there was no cover-up.

Two weeks after a report was published concluding that the EU rule-of-law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) had reacted appropriately to corruption claims within its ranks, the prosecutor who unearthed the claims described the document as a disappointment.

On a visit to Kosovo, the German Foreign Minister has reassured Kosovo about the planned special war crimes court, saying sensitive historical issues need to be dealt with openly. Germany's Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said that the creation of a special court on war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, during the conflict of the 1990s is an essential tool for Kosovo to deal with unresolved issues from the past.

The new memorial dedicated to the 1,650 people who have not been found since the Kosovo war was inaugurated in the garden of parliament to mark the end of Missing Persons Week.

The two-metre-high marble monument, entitled To Those We Miss, was unveiled on Monday at a ceremony attended by senior officials including Prime Minister Isa Mustafa and the families of people who have been missing since the war ended in 1999.

Marko Djuric, head of the Office for Kosovo in the government of Serbia, has said that he is planning on going to Kosovo on Friday even though the visit has not received a green light from the Foreign Ministry of Kosovo.

At the latest Belgrade-Pristina talks in Brussels, Kosovo agreed not to unilaterally privatize companies in the mainly Serbian north without seeking the consent of the community.

Aleksandar Vucic and Isa Mustafa, the Serbian and Kosovo Prime Ministers, met on Tuesday in Brussels for another round of EU-mediated talks and agreed to halt fresh privatisations of companies in the Serb-run north of Kosovo.

Lirije Gashi from Qyshk/Cuska, one of four villages targeted by the Serbian fighters in 1999, said she doubted that justice would be done after their convictions were overturned by the Belgrade court this week and a retrial was ordered.

“I don’t believe they will get the deserved sentence. I lost trust when they were sentenced for the first time,” said Gashi, who was a witness at the nine men’s trial.

Prime Minister Isa Mustafa said Kosovo's future regular army would need to consult with NATO first about any actions in the Serb-majority north.

Prime Minister Mustafa said on Wednesday that NATO would not stand in the way of Kosovo forming its own army, but NATO's approval would be needed before it could undertake any action in the mainly Serbian far north of the country.

A regional ministerial conference opened in Kosovo on Wednesday, bringing together the Foreign and Infrastructure ministers of Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

Along with regional decision makers, Johannes Hahn, the EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations, will also participate in the conference as well as Violeta Bulc, the European Commissioner for Transport, who will join via video link.

Political analysts in Pristina said that Kosovo’s image has suffered because of violent unrest 11 years ago that left 19 people dead.

On the 11th anniversary of the unrest in March 2004, Pristina-based political analyst Imer Mushkolaj said that the outbreak of deadly violence was sparked by frustration among Kosovo Albanians which had accumulated in the years after the 1998-99 war with Serbian forces.

Hundreds of refugees who fled Kosovo during the late 1990s and are now living in Montenegro say they are ready to go home if the authorities in both countries assist them.

The head of the Montenegro’s Directorate for Refugees, Zeljko Sofranac, said on Monday that at least 700 people from Kosovo, mostly from the Pec/Peja area, are ready to go back.