• COVID – 19: 378 new cases, 10 deaths (media)
• Between death and hope: Nurses reflect on a long year (Prishtina Insight)
• Hoti and Vucic clash in distance, far from the table of talks (media)
• Musliu: Hoti is a weak prime minister, LDK is seizing the state (media)
• Rexhepi: New elections, if compromise on President post isn’t found (media)
• Shala: Haradinaj’s election for President would suit PDK too (Epoka)
• “The frustrating failure of the German EU presidency” (Koha)
• Walker: I haven’t seen any proof against Thaci and the others (media)
• Serbia: Exhuming the skeletons of the Kosovo war (Balkan Insight)
• Vucic says no to recognition of Kosovo (Euronews Albania)

COVID – 19: 378 new cases, 10 deaths (media)

378 new cases of COVID – 19 and 10 deaths from the virus were recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo. 588 persons have recovered from the virus during this time. there are 12,374 active cases of COVID – 19 in Kosovo.

Between death and hope: Nurses reflect on a long year (Prishtina Insight)

Dealing with an influx of patients with coronavirus, working without a day off, coping with the loss of patients and losing any sense of a personal life – Kosovo’s nurses experienced a lot in 2020.

One year ago, in December 2019, health experts in China alerted the world that some patients were suffering from an unusual form of pneumonia. It was later discovered that the illness, now known as COVID-19, had been caused by a unique strand of coronavirus.

On March 13, only two days after the coronavirus outbreak was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, the first two cases were confirmed in Kosovo.

That night, Shqipe Kadriu had just finished her night shift at the Infectious Disease Clinic in Prishtina and headed out for a coffee with some friends. It would be her last coffee outside of the hospital grounds for a long time.

Since March, the clinic has admitted more than 2,000 patients and supplied thousands more with treatment.

Kadriu recalls the early days of the outbreak with despair. For 20 years, the 50-year-old nurse has been walking from her flat in Prishtina to the clinic, but between March and May, when Kosovo was in total lockdown, the city’s stray dogs were her only company.

“During the curfew, Prishtina looked like a ghost town,” she tells Prishtina Insight. “I was only accompanied by stray dogs while walking to work – and even felt a bit safe with them.”

Read full article at: https://bit.ly/3rjG9xQ

Hoti and Vucic clash in distance, far from the table of talks (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic have exchanged comments about the final phase of the Kosovo – Serbia dialogue. Commenting on Vucic’s remarks that Serbia will not recognise Kosovo’s independence, Hoti said that an agreement with Serbia would not happen if it does not include mutual recognition. “Statements by our neighbor in the north that they won’t recognise the independence of Kosovo do not contribute to the dialogue between the two countries. Dialogue has resumed on the basis of clear principles for a final agreement on the normalisation of relations and mutual recognition. There won’t be a partial agreement,” Hoti said. “Kosovo will continue its path toward the European Union. Kosovo remains committed to resolve all outstanding issues with Serbia through the EU-facilitated dialogue in Brussels”.

Musliu: Hoti is a weak prime minister, LDK is seizing the state (media)

Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) MP Ganimete Musliu said on Sunday that the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) “is seizing the state” and that Avdullah Hoti is “a weak prime minister”. She accused the government of seizing state security institutions and that it is persecuting the heads of key security institutions, referring mainly to the recent sacking of the head of the Kosovo Intelligence Agency. According to Musliu, the Democratic League of Kosovo’s only plan is to appoint unprofessional and party-affiliated people in key positions.

Rexhepi: New elections, if compromise on President post isn’t found (media)

Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) MP Fatmir Rexhepi said on Sunday if the Albanian political parties fail to reach a compromise agreement on the post of Kosovo President, the country will go to new parliamentary elections. “If a compromise is not found, there is no other way, we need to go to new elections, which are certainly legitimate, but we will be producing a double crisis,” he said in an interview with Reporteri.

Rexhepi argued that if the election results will be similar with the 2019 October elections, a political party will not be able to elect a President on its own and that a compromise agreement will be needed.

Shala: Haradinaj’s election for President would suit PDK too (Epoka)

Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) MP Haxhi Shala said in an interview with the paper on Sunday that the AAK has not changed its position on the candidacy of its leader Ramush Haradinaj for the post of Kosovo President. “We think that in this time Haradinaj is the best candidate for the post of President,” he said.

“In my opinion, now is not a good time for the country to go to early elections, but if the political parties fail to find an agreement to support Haradinaj’s candidacy, then there is no other solution, we will have to go to elections.”

According to Shala, Haradinaj’s election would suit the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) too. “I believe we will reach an agreement with the PDK because Haradinaj’s election would suit them too. In the situation created after the arrests of Thaci, Veseli, Krasniqi and Selimi, there is no better candidate than Haradinaj for the head of state,” he added.

“The frustrating failure of the German EU presidency” (Koha)

Brussels-based correspondent Augustin Palokaj writes in an opinion piece about what he calls “the frustrating failure of the German presidency of the European Union”. “When Germany took over the presidency of the EU, not only in Kosovo but in Balkans as a whole, there was growing optimism that it would do something about visa liberalisation and the enlargement of the EU. The Germans did say that there should not be any great expectations. But the German failure was so frustrating that one can reasonably ask if Germany ever tried to achieve any success. One cannot recall an EU presidency that has failed so much. This is not frustrating only for Germany, undoubtedly the most powerful country in the EU, but also for many Balkans countries and especially for Kosovo,” Palokaj writes.

Walker: I haven’t seen any proof against Thaci and the others (media)

Several news websites quote William Walker, former head of the Kosovo Verification Mission, as saying that he has not seen any proof against former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and other leaders of the former Kosovo Liberation Army who are being tried at the Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

“I know all these people that were sent to The Hague, from the President to Kadri Veseli and Jakup Krasniqi. I haven’t seen any proof by the courts … I have no comment on what the outcome can be, because I haven’t seen the proof or heard the arguments,” he said.

Walker also said: “I criticised the Office of the Specialist Prosecutor. I said there was a bloody war and a genocidal policy in 1998 – 1999. Many people from Belgrade and the government of Slobodan Milosevic did some horrible things here in Kosovo. Many people were brutally treated by the Belgrade government and many people in that government are responsible for those acts. I often mention that Serbian President Vucic was a member in Slobodan Milosevic’s government and I am sure that he was aware of what was happening in Kosovo.”

The former U.S. diplomat called om the international community to establish a court that would try generals and former ministers of Milosevic’s government.

Serbia: Exhuming the skeletons of the Kosovo war (Balkan Insight)

A mass grave of suspected Kosovo war victims was found in Serbia after months of hints of a possible Belgrade-Pristina agreement to help find the remaining wartime missing persons - although political posturing on the issue continued in 2020.

“In the coming weeks, following the joint hard work of the forensic team, more families will be able to close a very dark chapter in their lives,” Fabien Bourdier of the International Committee of the Red Cross said in early December.

Bourdier was speaking at an old open-cast mine in the Serbian village of Kizevak, where human remains were found in November – almost certainly those of ethnic Albanians who were killed during the war in Kosovo in 1999.

The chief of Serbia’s Commission for Missing Persons, Veljko Odalovic, said that the mass grave contained the remains of between 15 and 17 people.

The grave, which is not far from another mass burial site of Kosovo Albanians at a quarry in nearby Raska, was finally found after five years of unsuccessful searches.

As Krassimir Nikolov, exhumation coordinator at the European Union’s rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, explained that the “breakthrough” came when aerial images of the open-cast mine from 1999, 2002 and 2020 were compared.

“After a thorough analysis, we identified the changes in the landscape and narrowed down the area of interest,” Nikolov said.

The find at Kizevak is the latest in a series of mass graves that have been discovered in Serbia since the Kosovo war. Victims of massacres by Serbian forces were transported to Serbia and buried in clandestine graves as part of attempts to cover up the crimes.

Read full article at: https://bit.ly/2LRgigd

Vucic says no to recognition of Kosovo (Euronews Albania)

“Serbia will not recognise Kosovo’s independence for as long as Aleksandar Vucic is the president of the country,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an interview with TV Prva.

“Until Serbia holds the next parliamentary and presidential elections in 2022, the recognition of Kosovo will not happen. Then it is the people who will decide,” Vucic said.

According to the Serbian president, no Western country believes that Kosovo is independent.

“Washington’s opinion, regardless of who is in power, will not change, although the relationship was somewhat different (during the Donald Trump administration),” he added.