Why is Kosovo witnessing ethnic tensions again?

Kosovo gained independence from Serbia in 2008.

Pristine:

Protesting Serbs in the ethnically divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica erected new barricades on Tuesday, hours after Serbia said it had placed its army on full combat alert following weeks of escalating tensions between Belgrade and pristine.

The Serbian Defense Ministry said that given the latest events in the region and Belgrade’s belief that Kosovo was preparing to attack the Serbs and forcibly remove the barricades, President Aleksandar Vucic had ordered the army and Serbian police were on high alert.

The Kosovo government asked NATO peacekeepers to remove the barricades, but said it had the ability and willingness to act.

Kosovo and Serbia intend to join the European Union and have agreed, as part of that membership process, to resolve their outstanding issues and build good neighborly relations.

Here are some facts about the matchup:

WHY ARE THERE TENSION?

Kosovo gained independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after a guerrilla uprising against Belgrade’s repressive regime.

Serbia, however, still regards Kosovo as an integral part of its territory and rejects suggestions that it is stirring up tensions and conflicts within its neighbor’s borders. Belgrade accuses Pristina of trampling on the rights of the Serb minority.

Ethnic Serbs, who do not recognize the Pristina government or Kosovo’s state institutions, make up 5% of Kosovo’s 1.8 million people, and ethnic Albanians make up about 90%. The Serbs have vented their hostility by refusing to pay the Kosovo power operator for the electricity they use, for example, and frequently attacking police trying to make arrests.

WHY DID THE TENSION COME BACK?

New ethnic tensions have flared since Dec. 10, when Serbs erected multiple barricades and exchanged fire with police following the arrest of a former Serb policeman for allegedly assaulting on-duty police officers during an earlier protest.

The standoff comes after months of trouble over license plate issues. Kosovo has for years wanted the roughly 50,000 Serbs in the north to swap their Serbian car license plates for ones issued by Pristina, as part of the government’s desire to assert its authority over its territory.

On July 31, Pristina announced a two-month window to change the plates, prompting protests, but later agreed to push the implementation date back to next year.

Ethnic Serb mayors in northern municipalities, along with local judges and some 600 police officers, resigned in November in protest of the impending change.

WHAT DO THE SERBIANS WANT?

The Kosovo Serbs want to create an association of mostly Serb municipalities that would operate with greater autonomy. Serbia and Kosovo have made little progress on this and other issues since they engaged in the EU-sponsored dialogue in 2013.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF NATO AND THE EU?

NATO has some 3,700 troops stationed in Kosovo to keep the peace. The alliance said it would intervene in accordance with its mandate if stability in the area was endangered. The European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), which arrived in 2008, still has around 200 special police officers there.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)