Word: serbian
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During the 1999 war, NATO compelled Serbian security forces to pull out of Kosovo, which was then placed under United Nations rule. Kosovo's provisional government, dominated by the province's mostly ethnic Albanian population, is expected to proclaim independence within the next few weeks. Most European Union members and the United States have announced that they will back Kosovo as an independent state, despite fierce opposition by Serbia and Russia...
...Sunday's vote (he had trailed substantially in most pre-election polls). However, Nikolic may have the upper hand in the runoff, particularly because he is expected to receive the support of the Socialist Party, whose candidate got 6% of the vote. Nikolic is a deputy of the Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, who is currently under trial for crimes against humanity for his wartime activity. Both Seselj and Nikolic were close associates of late President Slobodan Milosevic, who died during his own war crimes trial in the Hague...
...Tadic can only win if he gets sincere support from the Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica," Goran Svilanovic, a former Serbian Foreign Minister tells TIME. "The key to Serbia's future lies in [Kostunica's] hands." Kostunica, who shares power with Tadic's Democratic Party in the government, could help turn out support for the incumbent from moderate nationalists. However, Kostunica has an uneasy relationship with Tadic; and the Prime Minister's recent rhetoric has become increasingly anti-Western, referring to Western support for Kosovo independence as "ripping out the heart of Serbia." So far, he has refused to comment...
Even if Nikolic wins the runoff, he will not be able to change Serbian politics dramatically or immediately. Kostunica and his moderate nationalism are likely to hold sway even if he and Tadic decide to call it quits. Kostunica's parliamentary bloc, while numerically small, is an essential ally to any larger party seeking to form a ruling coalition. Meanwhile, parliamentary elections are not scheduled until January 2011. "The government would probably survive, at least for a while, even with Nikolic as President", Svilanovic explains. "But Serbia's road towards the E.U. membership would certainly become much more complicated...
...equate the atrocities that strongman Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbian forces are committing with the horrors of World War II is bizarre [LETTERS, April 26]. The Holocaust was far more atrocious in that a whole population was not only murdered but also degraded through propaganda and concentration camps. What is happening to the Albanians is certainly a catastrophe, but the genocide is on a small scale compared to the Holocaust. DAVID W. PETTY Oregon...