Prospect of Haradinaj Running Kosovo Divides Serbia

The decision by Kosovo Serb party Srpska Lista(Serbian List) to back the election of Kadri Veseli, from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, as the new parliamentary speaker on Thursday has drawn fiercely divided reactions in Serbia, where rightists accused it - and Belgrade - of surrendering to a war criminal.

Veseli's election as speaker will allow his party's PAN coalition ally, the former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla leader Ramush Haradinaj, to form a government.

In Serbia, the opposition Movement of Free Citizens said it was ironic that a party linked so closely to Belgrade had effectively paved the way for Haradinaj to become leader of Kosovo.

It recalled than when President Aleksandar Vucic was prime minister, both he and the director of the Serbian government's Office for Kosovo, Marko Djuric, "called Haradinaj a killer, a gangster and a rapist who killed children".

"Today, [Vucic's ruling] Serbian Progressive Party, in the form of Srpska Lista, will be entering the government of that same Haradinaj," it added.

Serbian authorities accuse Haradinaj of having murdered, raped and tortured Serb civilians during Kosovo's bloody war of independence from Serbia in the late 1990s. He denies committing war crimes.

Serbia has long sought Haradinaj's arrest under an international arrest warrant. After the French authorities detained him - but then decided not to extradite the former Kosovo guerrilla to Belgrade on April 27, Vucic condemened the decision.

The French ruling was "disgraceful, scandalous, unlawful, and above all else, political", Vucic said.

Despite that, the pro-Belgrade party in Kosovo, Srpska Lista, with its nine MPs, voted on Thursday for Haradinaj's ally, Veseli, to become speaker of the...