Kosovo closes border crossings amid rising tensions with Serbia over ethnic serb protests

Kosovo has closed two of its four border crossings with Serbia, citing escalating protests on the Serbian side, where demonstrators have blocked roads and turned back travelers carrying Kosovo-issued documents.

The closures, at the Brnjak and Merdare crossings in the northern, ethnic Serb-majority region of Kosovo, went into effect overnight between Friday and Saturday.

Kosovar Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla condemned the actions, accusing “masked extremist groups in Serbia” of selectively blocking the transit of people. “And all this in plain sight of the Serbian authorities,” Svecla added, highlighting the lack of intervention from Belgrade.

The decision to close the border crossings follows a wave of protests on the Serbian side, where demonstrators had blockaded the routes, protesting against Kosovo’s closure of parallel administrative offices that ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo had established as rivals to the official institutions.

The Serbian government in Belgrade, which has never recognized Kosovo’s independence since it declared it in 2008, financially supports a parallel health, education, and social security system for ethnic Serbs in the region. The protesters, many aligned with this Belgrade-backed system, vowed to keep the blockade in place until Kosovo police were “withdrawn from the north of Kosovo and the usurped institutions are returned to the Serbs.” They also called for the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) to take control in northern Kosovo.

The protests began shortly after Kosovar police raided and shut down five administrative offices tied to the Serbian government in northern Kosovo, further inflaming longstanding tensions between the two sides.

Kosovo’s Foreign Minister, Donika Gervalla-Schwarz, characterized the Serbian protests as yet another attempt by Belgrade to destabilize the region. “This is yet more proof that Belgrade is trying to provoke and destabilize its southern neighbor,” she said, underscoring the deep-rooted animosity that persists between Serbia and Kosovo.

The standoff is the latest in a series of incidents that have strained relations between the two countries. Earlier this year, Kosovo made the euro the only legal currency, effectively banning the use of the Serbian dinar, which further exacerbated tensions between ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and the Kosovar government.

Despite the closure of the Brnjak and Merdare crossings, at least two other border crossings between Kosovo and Serbia remain open, though the situation remains volatile, as both sides continue to wrestle with the unresolved issues of sovereignty and ethnic division stemming from the 1990s war.