Authorities in Kosovo on Monday tested the stability of the main bridge over the Iber that marks the dividing line of Mitrovica, between the Serb-majority north and the Albanian-majority south.
The Deputy Minister of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure, Hysen Durmishi, said that within two or three days a final report will be published about the durability of this bridge.
Its testing takes place in a period of warnings from the Kosovo government about its opening and objections from KFOR and Western diplomats.
“Today we are testing the stability of the bridge with loads, there are four loaded trucks and with the other monitoring equipment, the descents are measured in order to ascertain whether this bridge is stable for the traffic of vehicles or not”. said Mr. Durmishi.
While the bridge was being tested, government officials and civil society representatives from the ranks of the Serbian community debated the possibility of opening the bridge for car traffic. Currently, the bridge is used only for pedestrian traffic.
The Minister of Local Government in Kosovo, Elbert Krasniqi, said that it is absurd for the bridge to continue to be closed.
“I want to reiterate, as stated in the European Union's plan for the revitalization of this bridge, that the bridge over the Ibër River will become a symbol of the normalization of relations in Kosovo. In the same plan, it is said that its revitalization will help a lot in facilitating contacts between all citizens in the north and south and will therefore contribute to exchange and understanding”. Mr. Krasniqi said.
The mayor of North Mitrovica, Erden Atiq, said that the local authorities are ready to listen and take into account the concerns of the Serbian citizens, who oppose the opening of the bridge and demand that the issue be resolved during the Kosovo-Serbia talks in Brussels.
“We bear in mind that there is a lot of work that still needs to be done, but we are dealing with a politically complex municipality, so we have to work and all the work we always do with very careful and well-calculated steps so as not to cause tensions and discontent of the Serbian majority”, That's Atiq.
“We talk about opening the bridge, while we don't talk about some things that are essential to how we should live better. I don't understand this situation. I have also experienced the pressure from the Serbian List. But even now this situation is difficult for us. We are feeling threatened,” said Sergjan Gjorgjevic from North Mitrovica.
Shortly before the debate, the Kosovo police briefly arrested two members of the “Serbian Democracy” party, who, according to the police report, prevented a group of workers who were cleaning some nationalist inscriptions that incite hatred.
Groups of Serbian citizens protested in front of the police building in the north.
“They have used brutal violence and none of these civilian policemen have told us that they are part of the police, later we realized that they are police officers and their behavior was not professional at all”, said Ivan Orlović, vice president of the “Serbian Democracy” party.
Warnings by Kosovo authorities about the opening of the bridge and Monday's decision to close the branches of the Serbian Post in the north prompted protests by Serbian citizens and criticism from the United States and the European Union.
The spokesman for the US State Department, Matthew Miller, said on Wednesday that the United States is concerned with the uncoordinated decisions of the Kosovo government and called on it to return to cooperation with its main Western allies.
The spokesperson of the European Union, Peter Stano, said on Thursday that the bloc may increase the punitive measures against Kosovo, which have been in force since June of last year, if the administration in Pristina continues with unilateral and uncoordinated actions in the inhabited north with a Serbian majority.
“It is not only the European Union. Basically, all of Kosovo's international partners are telling the administration in Pristina not to get involved in this series of counterproductive, negative, unilateral and uncoordinated steps. We hope they will finally hear the message and stop us from considering what measures we will take if the situation does not change.” said spokesman Stano.
The United States and the European Union demand that these issues be addressed and resolved within the framework of talks on the normalization of Kosovo-Serbia relations, a process that has been stalled for a long time.
