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Kosovo reopened the country’s main border crossing with Serbia on Thursday after a nearby barricade that led to its closure was removed, while Serbia’s president said more than a dozen other Serb roadblocks in northern Kosovo also would be dismantled.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbs would start removing their barricades on Thursday. The move could defuse weeks of tensions between Kosovo and Serbia that triggered fears of new clashes in the Balkans.
Kosovo had demanded that NATO-led peacekeepers remove the barricades, or said its forces would do it. Serbia then raised combat readiness of its troops on the border with Kosovo, demanding an end to “attacks” against Kosovo Serbs.
The removal agreement was reached at a late-night crisis meeting with the leaders of Kosovo’s Serbs, Vucic said.
It followed the release from jail of a former Kosovo Serb police officer, whose detention on a terrorism change triggered protests and clashes in northern Kosovo.
