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One year after secession, Kosovo remains fragile
Sun Feb 15, 2009 4:47am EST
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By Fatos Bytyci
PRISTINA (Reuters) - A year after declaring independence, Kosovo has its own flag, its own national anthem -- even its own intelligence services.
But anyone phoning the former Serbian province on a landline still has to dial through Serbia. And the fact that the euro is the national currency sits oddly in a country for whom European Union membership is a distant dream.
Recognized as independent by more than 50 countries including the United States and most EU states, but shunned by others including Russia, China and Serbia, Kosovo's political stability is precarious.
Its 2 million ethnic Albanians and its 120,000 Serbs -- the latter backed by Belgrade -- live uneasily alongside each other under the protection of thousands of foreign soldiers and with the help of millions of euros in aid.
Younger Serbs and Albanians do not even speak each other's languages.
"There are tensions and the risk of more serious violent outbreak still exists," said Peter Palmer, Balkans director of the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG).
But there had not been the "high level of violence and exodus of the Serbs that some people predicted or feared."
Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians have lived separate lives since 1999, when NATO bombed Serbia to force it to pull troops out of the province.
Serbs still living in Kosovo vow never to submit to the authorities in Pristina.
"For me Kosovo will never be a state, it will remain always part of Serbia," said Miroslav Janicijevic, a young Serb from the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica. "Even if it becomes a state, it will not be my country."
Mitrovica has seen the worst clashes in recent years and Serbs and Albanians live separately, divided by the Ibar River. They rarely go to the other side of town.
"I don't feel safe living in the middle of Serbs," said Riza Dushi, an Albanian pensioner living in the Serb-dominated part of town, where the Pristina government has no control.
Many cars in the Serb part of Mitrovica bear no license plate -- an indication that the government's writ does not run there.
STATE SYMBOLS
Kosovo has established many, but not all, of the trappings of a state, including a new constitution, an army, national anthem, flag, passports, identity cards and intelligence agency. Continued...
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