Kosovo Parliament Backs Albin Kurti-Led Government Ending Deadlock

Kosovo’s parliament has approved a new government led by Prime Minister Albin Kurti after more than a year of political deadlock amid ongoing tensions with Serbia. 
  
Lawmakers in the 120-member assembly backed Kurti’s cabinet in a 66-49 vote on Wednesday, hours after parliament convened for the first time since his Vetevendosje party won a snap election in December.  
 
“During these years, as we have all witnessed, we have faced constant attacks and threats from Serbia,” said Kurti of tense relations with Kosovo’s northern neighbor, which has never recognized its independence since it was declared in 2008 after a war in the late 1990s. 
  
However, the prime minister, a former political prisoner, promised to pursue “normalization of relations” with Belgrade aimed at “a bilateral external relationship and not interference or meddling in internal affairs”. 
  
Tensions remain high in Kosovo’s north, where most of the ethnic Serb minority live, but normalisation of relations is a key requirement for both countries’ stated ambitions to join the European Union. 
 
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