Kosovo, Bosnian Activists Demand End to Visas

Activists from Bosnia and Kosovo meeting in Pristina on Friday issued a joint call to their governments to end the visa restrictions impeding relations between the two countries. 

The conference in Pristina, part of the "Open Talks Initiative," brought together journalists, academics, activists and artists to discuss economic, cultural and social ties - and the lack there of - between Bosnia and Kosovo.

"Many things are absurd in the Balkans but this is truly the stupidest!" Azem Vllasi, a lawyer and former President of Kosovo before the collapse of Yugoslavia, said. 

"How can it be that Kosovans wait months to travel to Bosnia, with whom their country was never at war, while they can travel freely to Serbia?" he asked.

Discussion centered on the lack of awareness, especially among younger generations, of the respective countries.  

"When I told my children I was going to Sarajevo, they asked where it was," Agron Bajrami, editor-in-chief of the Kosovo daily Koha Ditore said.

"Yet they know where London and Tokyo are. We are neighbours, but the only thing that they associate with Sarajevo is a burek [savoury pastry] shop, and with Banja Luka only a type of cevapi [minced meat]."

Slobodanka Dekic, of the Sarajevo-based Media Center, said that in addition to scrapping visas, decades of prejudices need to be combatted before relations between Bosnians and Kosovars can improve.

"It is not only technical issues like visas but the prejudice that Kosovars experience [in Bosnia]," Dekic said. "There is so much prejudice and hate speech that must be overcome."

Travel between the two countries was always difficult because of the poor state of road connections but it was not...