Ancient history The strategic position including the abundant
natural resources were favourable for the development of human settlements in Kosovo, as is highlighted by the hundreds of archaeological sites identified throughout its territory. is one of the most significant archaeological artefacts of Kosovo and has been adopted as the symbol of
Pristina. Since 2000, the increase in archaeological expeditions has revealed many previously unknown sites. The earliest documented traces in Kosovo are associated to the
Stone Age; namely, indications that cave dwellings might have existed, such as Radivojce Cave near the source of the
Drin River, Grnčar Cave in
Viti municipality and the Dema and Karamakaz Caves in the
municipality of Peja. The earliest archaeological evidence of organised settlement in Kosovo belongs to the
Neolithic Starčevo and
Vinča cultures.
Vlashnjë and
Runik are important sites of the
Neolithic era with the rock art paintings at Mrrizi i Kobajës near
Vlashnjë being the first find of prehistoric art in Kosovo. Amongst the finds of excavations in Neolithic Runik is a baked-clay
ocarina, which is the first musical instrument recorded in Kosovo. in the 3rd century BCE The first archaeological expedition in Kosovo was organised by the Austro-Hungarian army during
World War I in the
Illyrian tumuli burial grounds of Nepërbishti within the
district of Prizren. The Dardani retained an individuality and continued to maintain social independence after Roman conquest, playing an important role in the formation of new groupings in the Roman era.
Roman period During Roman rule, Kosovo was part of two provinces, with its western region in
Praevalitana and the vast majority of its modern territory belonging to
Dardania. Praevalitana and the rest of Illyria was conquered by the
Roman Republic in 168 BC. On the other hand, Dardania maintained its independence until the year 28 BC, when the Romans, under
Augustus, annexed it into their Republic. Dardania eventually became a part of the
Moesia province. During the reign of
Diocletian, Dardania became a full
Roman province and the entirety of Kosovo's modern territory became a part of the
Diocese of Moesia, and then during the second half of the 4th century, it became part of the
Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum. , situated southeast of
Pristina. The city, built by
Trajan, was an important political, cultural, and financial centre of the Roman province of Dardania. During Roman rule, a series of settlements developed in the area, mainly close to mines and to the major roads. The most important of the settlements was
Ulpiana, which is located near modern-day
Gračanica. It was established in the 1st century AD, possibly developing from a concentrated
Dardanian oppidum, and then was upgraded to the status of a
Roman municipium at the beginning of the 2nd century during the rule of
Trajan. Ulpiana became especially important during the rule of
Justinian I, after the Emperor rebuilt the city after it had been destroyed by an earthquake and renamed it to
Justiniana Secunda. Other important towns that developed in the area during Roman rule were
Vendenis, located in modern-day
Podujevë;
Viciana, possibly near
Vushtrri; and
Municipium Dardanorum, an important mining town in
Leposavić. Other archeological sites include
Çifllak in Western Kosovo,
Dresnik in
Klina,
Pestova in Vushtrri,
Vërban in
Viti, Poslishte between
Vërmica and
Prizren, Paldenica near
Hani i Elezit, as well as
Nerodimë e Poshtme and Nikadin near
Ferizaj. The one thing all the settlements have in common is that they are located either near roads, such as Via
Lissus-
Naissus, or near the mines of
North Kosovo and eastern Kosovo. Most of the settlements are archaeological sites that have been discovered recently and are being excavated. , a sculpture representing an
ancient deity of the
Dardani It is also known that the region was
Christianised during Roman rule, though little is known regarding Christianity in the Balkans in the three first centuries AD. The first clear mention of Christians in literature is the case of Bishop Dacus of Macedonia, from Dardania, who was present at the
First Council of Nicaea (325). It is also known that Dardania had a
Diocese in the 4th century, and its seat was placed in Ulpiana, which remained the
episcopal centre of Dardania until the establishment of
Justiniana Prima in 535 AD. The overwhelming presence of towns and municipalities in Kosovo with Slavic in their toponymy suggests that the Slavic migrations either assimilated or drove out population groups already living in Kosovo.
Toponyms suggest that the Slav presence in Kosovo and southernmost part of the
Morava Valley may have been quite weak in the first one or two centuries of Slav settlement as, unlike some other areas of the Balkans, such as Bosnia, Northern Serbia and the
Dalmatian hinterlands where old toponyms were completely swept aside, the names of some important old towns and toponyms of mountains survived in the region, including
Nish,
Shkup,
Sharr,
Lipjan and
Shtip. The pre-Slavic population in this territory served as a border zone between the early Serbs and Bulgarians which created a division between the Serbo-Croat language and the Bulgarian-Macedonian one. A transitional dialect, the
Torlak dialect, is considered to have developed later when the Serbo-Croat speakers expanded into the region in the late medieval period and came in contact with Bulgarian speakers. The Torlak dialect is also considered to have Albanian and
Romanian influence. Expansion of Slavs into the region is thought to have led to the spread of the
Vlachs (Romanian and Aromanian) into other areas of the Balkans.
Demetrios Chomatenos is the last Byzantine archbishop of
Ohrid to include Prizren in his jurisdiction until 1219.
Stefan Nemanja had seized the area along the
White Drin in 1185 to 1195 and the ecclesiastical split of Prizren from the Patriarchate in 1219 was the final act of establishing
Nemanjić rule.
Konstantin Jireček concluded, from the correspondence of archbishop Demetrios of Ohrid from 1216 to 1236, that Dardania was increasingly populated by Albanians and the expansion started from
Gjakova and
Prizren area, prior to the Slavic expansion. , a
UNESCO World Heritage Site , a UNESCO World Heritage Site During the 13th and 14th centuries, Kosovo was a political, cultural and religious centre of the
Serbian Kingdom. during which time thousands of Christian monasteries and feudal-style forts and castles were erected, with
Stefan Dušan using
Prizren Fortress as one of his temporary courts for a time. When the Serbian Empire fragmented into a conglomeration of principalities in 1371, Kosovo became the hereditary land of the
House of Branković. During the late 14th and early 15th centuries, parts of Kosovo, the easternmost area located near Pristina, were part of the
Principality of Dukagjini, which was later incorporated into an anti-Ottoman federation of all Albanian principalities, the
League of Lezhë. In 1330, Serbian king
Stefan Dečanski explicitly mentioned the presence of Albanians and the Albanian names of villages in Kosovo, in particular in the districts of Prizren and that of
Skopje. A
chrysobull of the Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan that was given to the Monastery of Saint Mihail and Gavril in Prizren between the years of 1348-1353 states the presence of Albanians in the vicinity of Prizren, the
Dukagjin Plain and in the villages of
Drenica. Within this chrysobull, nine Albanian stock-breeding villages within the vicinity of Prizren are mentioned explicitly; entire Albanian villages were gifted by Serbian kings, particularly Stefan Dušan as presents to Serb monasteries within Prizren,
Deçan and
Tetova. In one of Nemanjas charter, 170
Vlachs are mentioned in the area of Prizren. When Dečanski founded his monastery of Dečani in 1330, he referred to ‘villages and katuns of Vlachs and Albanians’ in the area of the white Drin. Vlachs and Albanians had to carry salt and provide serf labour for the monastery.
Medieval Monuments in Kosovo is a combined
UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of four
Serbian Orthodox churches and
monasteries in
Deçan,
Peja, Prizren and
Gračanica. The constructions were founded by members of the
Nemanjić dynasty, a prominent dynasty of
mediaeval Serbia.
Ottoman rule built by
Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, 1461 In 1389, as the
Ottoman Empire expanded northwards through the Balkans, Ottoman forces under Sultan
Murad I met with a Christian coalition led by
Moravian Serbia under
Prince Lazar in the
Battle of Kosovo. Both sides suffered heavy losses and the battle was a stalemate and it was even reported as a Christian victory at first, but Serbian manpower was depleted and
de facto Serbian rulers could not raise another equal force to the Ottoman army. Different parts of Kosovo were ruled directly or indirectly by the Ottomans in this early period. The medieval town of
Novo Brdo was under Lazar's son,
Stefan who became a loyal Ottoman vassal and instigated the downfall of
Vuk Branković who eventually joined the Hungarian anti-Ottoman coalition and was defeated in 1395–96. A small part of Vuk's land with the villages of Pristina and Vushtrri was given to his sons to hold as Ottoman vassals for a brief period. During this period,
Islam was introduced to the region. The Ottomans appeared to have a more deliberate approach to converting the Roman Catholic population who were mostly Albanians (and were most of the converts to Islam) in comparison with the mostly Serbian adherents of Eastern Orthodoxy, as they viewed the former less favourably due to its allegiance to Rome, a competing regional power. In 1690, Kosovo Albanian
Pjetër Bogdani led a revolt against the Ottoman Empire in Kosovo. Sources from 1690 refer to 20,000 Albanians in Kosovo having turned their weapons against the Turks. Following the
Great Turkish War, a number of
Serbs migrated northwards to Habsburg territories near the
Danube and
Sava rivers led by Serbian Patriarch
Arsenije III Crnojević. There were also some Christian and Muslim Albanians who departed. Afterwards, the Ottomans encouraged the migration of Albanians into Kosovo. The larger, eastern part of Kosovo remained overwhelmingly Serb Orthodox, with a Catholic Albanian, and later Muslim Albanian, presence growing from the west by the 16th century. although they generally desired the continuation of the Ottoman Empire. The League was dis-established in 1881 but enabled the awakening of a
national identity among Albanians, whose ambitions competed with those of the Serbs, the
Kingdom of Serbia wishing to incorporate this land that had formerly been within its empire. The modern Albanian-Serbian conflict has its roots in the
expulsion of the Albanians in 1877–1878 from areas that became incorporated into the
Principality of Serbia. During and after the
Serbian–Ottoman War of 1876–78, between 30,000 and 70,000 Muslims, mostly Albanians, were expelled by the
Serb army from the
Sanjak of Niš and fled to the
Kosovo Vilayet. According to Austrian data, by the 1890s Kosovo was 70% Muslim (nearly entirely of Albanian descent) and less than 30% non-Muslim (primarily Serbs). In May 1901, Albanians pillaged and partially burned the cities of
Novi Pazar,
Sjenica and Pristina, and
killed many Serbs near Pristina and in Kolašin (now North Kosovo). between the
Kingdom of Serbia (
yellow) and the
Kingdom of Montenegro (
green) following the
Balkan Wars in 1913 In the spring of 1912, Albanians under the lead of
Hasan Prishtina revolted against the Ottoman Empire. The rebels were joined by a wave of Albanians in the
Ottoman army ranks, who deserted the army, refusing to fight their own kin. The rebels defeated the Ottomans and the latter were forced to accept all fourteen demands of the rebels, which foresaw an effective autonomy for the Albanians living in the Empire. However, this autonomy never materialised, and the revolt created serious weaknesses in the Ottoman ranks, luring
Montenegro,
Serbia,
Bulgaria, and
Greece into declaring war on the Ottoman Empire and starting the
First Balkan War. After the Ottomans' defeat in the
First Balkan War, the
1913 Treaty of London was signed with
Metohija ceded to the
Kingdom of Montenegro and eastern Kosovo ceded to the
Kingdom of Serbia. During the
Balkan Wars, over 100,000 Albanians left Kosovo and about 50,000 were killed in the
massacres that accompanied the war. Soon, there were concerted
Serbian colonisation efforts in Kosovo during various periods between Serbia's 1912 takeover of the province and
World War II, causing the population of Serbs in Kosovo to grow by about 58,000 in this period. Serbian authorities promoted creating new Serb settlements in Kosovo as well as the assimilation of Albanians into Serbian society, causing a mass exodus of Albanians from Kosovo. The figures of Albanians forcefully expelled from Kosovo range between 60,000 and 239,807, while Malcolm mentions 100,000–120,000. In combination with the politics of extermination and expulsion, there was also a process of assimilation through religious conversion of Albanian Muslims and Albanian Catholics into the Serbian Orthodox religion which took place as early as 1912. These politics seem to have been inspired by the nationalist ideologies of
Ilija Garašanin and
Jovan Cvijić. In the winter of 1915–16, during
World War I, Kosovo saw the retreat of the Serbian army as Kosovo was occupied by
Bulgaria and
Austria-Hungary. In 1918, the
Allied Powers pushed the
Central Powers out of Kosovo. , . A new administration system on 26 April 1922 split Kosovo among three districts (
oblast) of the Kingdom: Kosovo,
Raška and Zeta. In 1929, the country was transformed into the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the territories of Kosovo were reorganised among the
Banate of Zeta, the
Banate of Morava and the
Banate of Vardar. In order to change the
ethnic composition of Kosovo, between 1912 and 1941 a
large-scale Serbian colonisation of Kosovo was undertaken by the Belgrade government. Kosovar Albanians' right to receive education in their own language
was denied alongside other non-Slavic or unrecognised Slavic nations of Yugoslavia, as the kingdom only recognised the Slavic Croat, Serb, and Slovene nations as constituent nations of Yugoslavia. Other Slavs had to identify as one of the three official Slavic nations and non-Slav nations deemed as minorities. In 1935 and 1938, two agreements between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Turkey were signed on the expatriation of 240,000 Albanians to Turkey, but the expatriation did not occur due to the outbreak of
World War II. After the
Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, most of Kosovo was assigned to Italian-controlled Albania, and the rest was controlled by Germany and Bulgaria. A three-dimensional conflict ensued, involving inter-ethnic, ideological, and international affiliations. Albanian collaborators persecuted Serb and Montenegrin settlers. Estimates differ, but most authors estimate that between 3,000 and 10,000 Serbs and Montenegrins
died in Kosovo during the Second World War. Another 30,000 to 40,000, or as high as 100,000, Serbs and Montenegrins, mainly settlers, were deported to Serbia in order to
Albanianise Kosovo. Nonetheless, these conflicts were relatively low-level compared with other areas of Yugoslavia during the war years. Two Serb historians also estimate that 12,000 Albanians died. An official investigation conducted by the Yugoslav government in 1964 recorded nearly 8,000 war-related fatalities in Kosovo between 1941 and 1945, 5,489 of them Serb or Montenegrin and 2,177 Albanian. Some sources note that up to 72,000 individuals were encouraged to settle or resettle into Kosovo from Albania by the short-lived Italian administration. Until 1945, the only entity bearing the name of Kosovo in the late modern period had been the Vilayet of Kosovo, a political unit created by the Ottoman Empire in 1877. However, those borders were different. Tensions between ethnic Albanians and the Yugoslav government were significant, not only due to ethnic tensions but also due to political ideological concerns, especially regarding relations with neighbouring Albania. Harsh repressive measures were imposed on Kosovo Albanians due to suspicions that there were sympathisers of the
Stalinist regime of
Enver Hoxha of Albania. , the vice-president of
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, from 1978 to 1979
Islam in Kosovo at this time was repressed and both Albanians and Muslim Slavs were encouraged to declare themselves to be Turkish and emigrate to Turkey. While there was tension, charges of "genocide" and planned harassment have been discredited as a pretext to revoke Kosovo's autonomy. For example, in 1986 the Serbian Orthodox Church published an official claim that Kosovo Serbs were being subjected to an Albanian program of 'genocide'. Though these charges were disproved by police statistics, The protests were brutally suppressed by the police and army, with many protesters arrested. During the 1980s, ethnic tensions continued with frequent violent outbreaks against Yugoslav state authorities, resulting in a further increase in emigration of Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups. The Yugoslav leadership tried to suppress protests of Kosovo Serbs seeking protection from ethnic discrimination and violence.
Kosovo War advocated for the rights of Kosovar Albanians and their self-determination. Inter-ethnic tensions continued to worsen in Kosovo throughout the 1980s. In 1989, Serbian President
Slobodan Milošević, employing a mix of intimidation and political maneuvering, drastically reduced Kosovo's special autonomous status within Serbia and started cultural oppression of the ethnic Albanian population. Kosovar Albanians responded with a
non-violent separatist movement, employing widespread
civil disobedience and creation of parallel structures in
education, medical care, and taxation, with the ultimate goal of achieving the
independence of Kosovo. In July 1990, Kosovo Albanians proclaimed the existence of the
Republic of Kosova, and declared it a sovereign and independent state in September 1992. In May 1992,
Ibrahim Rugova was elected its president. During its lifetime, the Republic of Kosova was only officially
recognised by Albania. By the mid-1990s, the Kosovo Albanian population was growing restless, as the status of Kosovo was not resolved as part of the
Dayton Agreement of November 1995, which ended the
Bosnian War. By 1996, the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an ethnic Albanian guerrilla
paramilitary group that sought the separation of Kosovo and the eventual creation of a
Greater Albania, had prevailed over Rugova's non-violent resistance movement and launched attacks against the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police in Kosovo, resulting in the
Kosovo War. By 1998, international pressure compelled Yugoslavia to sign a ceasefire and partially withdraw its security forces. Events were to be monitored by
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) observers according to an agreement negotiated by
Richard Holbrooke. The ceasefire did not hold and fighting resumed in December 1998, culminating in the
Račak massacre, which attracted further international attention to the conflict. though NATO could not appeal to any particular motion of the
Security Council of the United Nations to help legitimise its intervention. Combined with continued skirmishes between Albanian guerrillas and Yugoslav forces the conflict resulted in a further massive displacement of population in Kosovo. soldiers holding pictures in memory of the men who were killed or went missing in the
Krusha massacres During the conflict, between 848,000 and 863,000 ethnic Albanians fled or were forcefully driven from Kosovo and an additional 590,000 were internally displaced. Some sources claim that this
ethnic cleansing of Albanians was part of a plan known as
Operation Horseshoe, described as "Milosevic's final solution to the Kosovo problem". However, the existence and implementation of this plan has not been proven. During the war, over 90,000 Serbian and other non-Albanian refugees fled the province. In September 1998, Serbian police collected 34 bodies of people believed to have been seized and murdered by the KLA, among them some ethnic Albanians, at Lake Radonjić near Glođane (Gllogjan) in what became known as the
Lake Radonjić massacre, the most serious atrocity by the KLA during the conflict. By June, Milošević agreed to a foreign military presence in Kosovo and the withdrawal of his troops. In the days after the Yugoslav Army withdrew, over 80,000 Serb and other non-Albanian civilians (almost half of 200,000 estimated to live in Kosovo) were expelled from Kosovo, and many of the remaining civilians were victims of abuse. After the Kosovo and other
Yugoslav Wars, Serbia became home to the highest number of refugees and
IDPs (including Kosovo Serbs) in Europe." (Heroines) monument in
Pristina. It is dedicated to women victims of sexual violence perpetrated by Serbian forces, during the Kosovo War, of which the vast majority were Albanian women. The
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) prosecuted crimes committed during the Kosovo War. Nine senior Yugoslav officials, including Milošević, were indicted for
crimes against humanity and
war crimes committed between January and June 1999. Six of the defendants were convicted, one was acquitted, one died before his trial could commence, and one (Milošević) died before his trial could conclude. Six KLA members were charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes by the ICTY following the war, and one was convicted. In total around 10,317 civilians were killed during the war, of whom 8,676 were Albanians, 1,196 Serbs and 445 Roma and others in addition to 3,218 killed members of armed formations.
United Nations administration with Albanian children during his visit to Kosovo, June 1999|318x318px On 10 June 1999, the UN Security Council passed
UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which placed Kosovo under transitional UN administration (
UNMIK) and authorised
Kosovo Force (KFOR), a NATO-led peacekeeping force. Resolution 1244 provided that Kosovo would have autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and affirmed the
territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, which has been legally succeeded by the Republic of Serbia. Estimates of the number of Serbs who left when Serbian forces left Kosovo vary from 65,000 to 250,000. Within post-conflict Kosovo Albanian society, calls for retaliation for previous violence done by Serb forces during the war circulated through public culture. Widespread attacks against Serbian cultural sites commenced following the conflict and the return of hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees to their homes. In 2004, prolonged negotiations over Kosovo's future status, sociopolitical problems and nationalist sentiments resulted in the
Kosovo unrest. 11 Albanians and 16 Serbs were killed, 900 people (including peacekeepers) were injured, and several houses, public buildings and churches were damaged or destroyed. International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged under
UN Security Council Resolution 1244. The UN-backed talks, led by UN
Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, began in February 2006. Whilst progress was made on technical matters, both parties remained diametrically opposed on the question of status itself. In February 2007, Ahtisaari delivered a draft status settlement proposal to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina, the basis for a draft
UN Security Council Resolution which proposed 'supervised independence' for the province. A draft resolution, backed by the
United States, the
United Kingdom and other European members of the
Security Council, was presented and rewritten four times to try to accommodate Russian concerns that such a resolution would undermine the principle of state sovereignty. Russia, which holds a veto in the Security Council as one of five
permanent members, had stated that it would not support any resolution which was not acceptable to both Belgrade and Kosovo Albanians. Whilst most observers had, at the beginning of the talks, anticipated independence as the most likely outcome, others have suggested that a rapid resolution might not be preferable. After many weeks of discussions at the UN, the United States, United Kingdom and other European members of the Security Council formally 'discarded' a draft resolution backing
Ahtisaari's proposal on 20 July 2007, having failed to secure Russian backing. Beginning in August, a "
Troika" consisting of negotiators from the European Union (
Wolfgang Ischinger), the United States (
Frank G. Wisner) and Russia (Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko) launched a new effort to reach a status outcome acceptable to both Belgrade and Pristina. Despite Russian disapproval, the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France appeared likely to recognise Kosovar independence. A declaration of independence by Kosovar Albanian leaders was postponed until the end of the
Serbian presidential elections (4 February 2008). A significant portion of politicians in both the EU and the US had feared that a premature declaration could boost support in Serbia for the nationalist candidate,
Tomislav Nikolić. In November 2001, the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe supervised the
first elections for the
Assembly of Kosovo. After that election, Kosovo's political parties formed an all-party unity coalition and elected
Ibrahim Rugova as president and
Bajram Rexhepi (PDK) as prime minister. After Kosovo-wide elections in October 2004, the LDK and AAK formed a new governing coalition that did not include PDK and Ora. This coalition agreement resulted in
Ramush Haradinaj (AAK) becoming prime minister, while Ibrahim Rugova retained the position of president. PDK and Ora were critical of the coalition agreement and have since frequently accused that government of corruption.
Parliamentary elections were held on 17 November 2007. After early results,
Hashim Thaçi who was on course to gain 35 per cent of the vote, claimed victory for PDK, the
Democratic Party of Kosovo, and stated his intention to declare independence. Thaçi formed a coalition with president
Fatmir Sejdiu's
Democratic League which was in second place with 22 per cent of the vote. The turnout at the election was particularly low. Most members of the Serb minority refused to vote.
Declaration of independence was unveiled at the celebration of the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, proclaimed earlier that day, 17 February 2008, in
Pristina. ,
Hashim Thaçi, then-
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden , and the
president of Kosovo,
Fatmir Sejdiu, with the
Declaration of Independence of Kosovo Kosovo declared independence from
Serbia on 17 February 2008. recognised its independence, including all of its immediate neighbours, with the exception of Serbia; 10 states have subsequently withdrawn that recognition. Of the UN Security Council members, while the US, UK and France do recognise Kosovo's independence, Russia and China do not. Since declaring independence, it has become a member of international institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund and
World Bank, though not of the United Nations. The Serb minority of Kosovo, which largely opposed the declaration of independence, formed the
Community Assembly of Kosovo and Metohija in response. The creation of the assembly was condemned by Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu, while UNMIK has said the assembly is not a serious issue because it will not have an operative role. On 8 October 2008, the UN General Assembly resolved, on a proposal by Serbia, to ask the
International Court of Justice to render an advisory opinion on the legality of Kosovo's declaration of independence. The advisory opinion, which is not binding over decisions by states to recognise or not recognise Kosovo, was rendered on 22 July 2010, holding that Kosovo's declaration of independence was not in violation either of general principles of
international law, which do not prohibit unilateral declarations of independence, nor of specific international law – in particular UNSCR 1244 – which did not define the final status process nor reserve the outcome to a decision of the Security Council. Some rapprochement between the two governments took place on 19 April 2013 as both parties reached the
Brussels Agreement, an agreement brokered by the EU that allowed the Serb minority in Kosovo to have its own police force and court of appeals. The agreement is yet to be ratified by either parliament. Presidents of Serbia and Kosovo organised two meetings, in
Brussels on 27 February 2023 and
Ohrid on 18 March 2023, to create and agree upon an 11-point agreement on implementing a European Union-backed deal to normalise ties between the two countries, which includes recognising "each other's documents such as passports and license plates". A number of protests and demonstrations took place in Kosovo between
2021 and
2023, some of which involved weapons and resulted in deaths on both sides. Amongst the injured were 30 NATO peacekeepers. The main reason behind the 2022–23 demonstrations ended on 1 January 2024 when each country recognised each other's vehicle registration plates. == Geography ==