Kosovo leader mulls first Serbia visit

PRISTINA: Kosovo’s foreign minister and former guerrilla Hashim Thaci is set to make his first visit to former foe Belgrade to attend a regional conference, a Kosovan official said Friday, but authorities there have threatened to arrest him for alleged terrorism.
Thaci “has in principle accepted an invitation to visit Belgrade,” his advisor Ardian Arifaj told AFP.
Thaci has been invited by a non-governmental organisation to attend a conference on the accession of the Western Balkans countries into the European Union on April 24.
But Belgrade warned that if he crosses into Serbia, the former leader of the political wing of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) that fought against Serbian forces during the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict, would be arrested.
In 1997, Belgrade sentenced Thaci in absentia to 10 years in jail for “terrorism” and has issued an arrest warrant for him.
“If he turns up in Belgrade, the interior ministry will act according to the law and will bring him to justice,” Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said.
Thaci’s Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic said Serbian authorities were not consulted regarding Thaci’s possible visit.
He said the Kosovo minister “has no place being” in the Serbian capital.
Kosovo proclaimed independence from Serbia in 2008.
Serbia still refuses to recognise it as an independent state, but in 2013 Pristina and Belgrade signed an EU-brokered agreement to normalise ties.
More than 100 countries, including the United States and most of the EU’s 28 member states, have recognised Kosovo’s independence.