Kosovo and Serbia ban visits by skeptical ministers

2025-03-26 15:24:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Serbia has banned the visit of Kosovo's Minister of Culture, Hajrulla Çeku, to Presevo. Kosovo has also taken the same measure, banning the visit to Kosovo of Serbian Minister of Health, Zlatibor Llonçar.

The Mayor of Presheva, Ardita Sinani, said that this is the second time that Minister Çeku has been banned from visiting Presheva, one of three municipalities in southern Serbia inhabited by Albanians.

Sinan has accused the authorities in Serbia of hiding "behind a pro-European facade," but such decisions, according to her, are "an act of Serbian nationalist politics."

The Kosovo government has not yet reacted to the ban on Çeku's visit, nor has Serbia given any reason for this.

Meanwhile, Serbia's Minister of Health, Zlatibor Lloncar, has also announced that authorities in Kosovo have denied his request to visit Gracanica and North Mitrovica.

He said he intended to meet with health workers in Serbian health institutions - which are considered illegal in Kosovo.

He has accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of "directly undermining the normalization of relations" with these visit bans.

The Kosovo Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora has not yet responded to Radio Free Europe's questions about whether it has rejected Llonçar's request to visit Kosovo and why.

Lloncar claimed that there was notification of his visit to Kosovo, as required by the agreement.

The issue of official visits between Kosovo and Serbia is regulated through an agreement reached within the framework of the dialogue for the normalization of relations, which is mediated by the European Union.

Visits must be announced through liaison officers in Kosovo and Serbia. Then, authorities in the respective countries must authorize them.

In recent years, both Kosovo and Serbia have rejected requests for visits from government officials, as well as religious figures, as relations between the two countries remain tense.

Tensions have escalated since April 2023, when new Albanian mayors of four municipalities in the north, inhabited by a Serb majority, were elected.

Tensions peaked in September of that year, when a group of armed Serbs attacked the Kosovo Police in Banjska, Zvecan, killing a sergeant.

Also last year, the Iber-Lepenc canal in the north was attacked with explosive devices. Kosovo has blamed Serbia for the attacks, but Belgrade has denied any involvement./ REL