Pristina: Kosovo Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj said yesterday his country had retaliated against neighbouring Serbia and would do so again after an ex-prime minister was arrested in France on a warrant issued by Belgrade.
The arrest on Wednesday of Ramush Haradinaj, a guerrilla commander in the 1998-99 war against Serbian rule who served briefly as prime minister in 2004 and 2005, has heightened tensions between the Balkan neighbours.
Kosovo seceded from Serbia in 2008. Both states want to join the European Union membership but Brussels says they must normalise relations before their applications can go ahead. Kosovo opposition parties have called for their EU-mediated dialogue to be halted. “We took reciprocal measures with Nikolic (and) we will do that again in the future,” Hoxhaj said “There has to be a revision of our relations with Serbia.”
Ethnic Albanian protesters in the western town of Gjakova - mostly families of those killed by Serb forces during the 1998-99 conflict - stoned a bus that was carrying ethnic Serb pilgrims marking Orthodox Christmas Eve. Hoxhaj said Serbia had issued more international arrest warrants for Kosovo citizens, limiting their travel abroad.
