Word: kosovo
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...Until recently, Serbia's politics amounted to a pretty even match between pro-European moderates who wanted Serbia to join the E.U. and nationalists who wanted closer ties with Russia. Kosovo's declaration of independence tipped the balance in favor of the nationalists. Some 60% of Serbs say they want to join the E.U., but that number drops below 45% if they are told the price of E.U. entry is the loss of Kosovo. The ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party - which once advocated union with Russia and Belarus, and is now tied for first place with a coalition of more...
...stabilization" agreement aimed at starting negotiations to join the E.U, has become the subject of a hate campaign. After the signing of the E.U. agreement, the nationalist tabloid Kurir carried a photo of Tadic and a colleague toasting the deal under the headline "Serbian Pigs Rejoice! They Gave Away Kosovo!" Tadic reportedly received a letter recently accusing him of "treason" and promising him "a bullet in the forehead." Authorities are taking the threat seriously: Zoran Djindjic, the reformist Serbian Prime Minister who helped topple Milosevic, was assassinated in March 2003. Even by Serbian standards, the political atmosphere "has become poisoned...
...Ivanovic stands truculently at the center of the worsening crisis. As deputy director of Mitrovica's hospital, he controls hundreds of local Belgrade-paid government jobs. And as head of the Serbian National Council, he is key to local resistance against any power but Serbia in northern Kosovo. Interviewed in his hospital office, Ivanovic, dressed in a leather jacket and surrounded by Serbian flags, says the E.U. would be wise to stay out of Mitrovica altogether. Any attempt to establish a presence in the town will lead to "illegal chaos and instability," he says. Serbs like Ivanovic want to prevent...
...Marijan Ilincic, a part-time judo instructor and chairman of the Association of the Descendants of the Serbian Fighters from the 1912-20 Thessaloniki Front, convened a small group of war veterans near a NATO post in Mitrovica and set fire to a U.S. flag. "Your country recognized Kosovo," Ilincic growled at a TIME reporter, whom he assumed to be an American. "You're not welcome here...
...Kosovo Albanian?led government in Pristina has refrained from rising to Serbia's bait. Lutfi Haziri, a prominent member of the largest party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, says: "We will work very hard to integrate Serbs as much as we can." But how long their restraint will last depends in part on whether the E.U. mission can marginalize Serb hard-liners like Ivanovic. For that to happen, the U.N. Secretary-General will have to ignore Russia's griping about the illegality of Kosovo's declaration of independence and get on with handing over authority to the Kosovar government...