PANA Coalition

Haradinaj claimed that Prime Minister Albin Kurti could be "spy of Serbia for threatening Kosovo's alliance with the USA and NATO".
Haradinaj called for the dismissal of Prime Minister Kurti and his government a national emergency and urged MPs to be part of the vote of no confidence.

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci addressed the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Tuesday as defence lawyers began their opening statements in his trial, saying he anticipates that he will be cleared.

"I expect to be acquitted," Thaci told the court.

Follow BIRN's reporters for the latest developments as the war crimes trial of Kosovo's ex-president Hashim Thaci and three other former leaders of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army begins in The Hague.

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and his three co-defendants went on trial at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers on Monday morning, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed between at least March 1998 and September 1999 in Kosovo and neighbouring Albania during and just after the war with Serbian forces.

Media unions and opposition parties have accused Kosovo's ruling party, Vetevendosje, of the capture of the public broadcaster, RTK, after the board announced that Rilind Gervalla was appointed Director of Television on Tuesday.

Both the EU and the US opposed tariffs on the grounds that they are an obstacle to the resumption of Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. For the first time in decades, Kosovo found itself on the receiving end of international criticism, with the West effectively succumbing to Serbia's demand for an unconditional lifting of the tariffs as a condition to resume the dialogue.

Many topics, little consensus

Pedestrians walk in the Serb dominated northern part of the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

Pressing on with his plans to form a new government without holding fresh elections, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci on Thursday asked the former junior governing party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, Isa Mustafa, to name a potential mandator to form a new administration.

After the heads of the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, Isa Mustafa, and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, on Wednesday agreed to work on creating a new coalition government, President Thaci said he would give a mandate to form a government to whatever coalition was able to assemble a majority.

"Next week I'll take the final constitutional steps to enable the formation of a new government with full legitimacy from parliament, capable of fighting COVID-19 and serving the people," the President tweeted.