After US state department counsellor Derek Chollet recently visited Kosovo in a bid to calm tensions flaring in the north of the country, he said Washington’s priority was to prevent “violence metastasising” (spreading) between Serbs and Albanians.
“The last thing any of us wants right now is a crisis in this part of the world given that we have the biggest crisis since the second world war not too far away,” Chollet told journalists. He added that: “We don’t want to be in a crisis diplomacy. First, licence plates, then barricades, we don’t want something else next week.”
The US diplomat was referring to a crisis late last year over car license plates in north Kosovo, which borders Serbia. More than a decade after Kosovo – formerly an autonomous province of Serbia – unilaterally declared independence, Serbia has never recognised Kosovo as a sovereign state.
