TIRANA, Feb. 17 – Albanian authorities marked the anniversary of the independence of Kosovo Monday, six years after it was declared from Pristhina.
Kosovo celebrated its sixth anniversary of independence from Serbia. Until now 106 countries out of the 193 represented at the UN have so far recognized Kosovo as an independent country, including the U.S. and 23 of the European Union’s 28 members.
All of Albania’s top officials — President Bujar Nishani, Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Edi Rama — took part at the ceremony held from the Kosovo embassy in Tirana.
Serbia opposes Kosovo’s independence, supported by Russia and China, permanent members of the UN Security Council.
With EU mediation, Belgrade and Pristina have started talks that have culminated in an historic agreement over the normalization of relations. That paved the way to Serbia’s EU membership talks which started this January.
Brussels also awarded Kosovo, setting the groundwork for the definition of a Stabilization and Association agreement with Prishtina, a first step to get closer to the EU.
Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 came after the end of the 1998-1999 conflict between Albanian separatists with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the Serbian army, which claimed some 13,000 lives.
Following the repression and ethnic cleansing of the Yugoslav regime of Slobodan Milosevic, NATO decided in the spring of 1999 to carry out air raids against Serbia and in June some 50,000 NATO soldiers with the KFOR task force entered Kosovo, which was under international protection. Now they have remained only 6,000 troops.
The UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and EU rule of law mission EULEX are still operating there.
