# Kosovo **Kosovo** is the small, Albanian-majority territory in the Balkans that declared independence from [[Serbia]] on **17 February 2008**. Belgrade has never accepted it, and Kosovo is not a member of the [[United Nations]]. Serbian nationalism treats Kosovo as the cradle of the medieval Serbian state and the site of the 1389 battle against the Ottomans. [[Slobodan Milošević]] rose to power on that claim, and his 1998–99 war there ended with [[NATO]] bombing Yugoslavia. Its status remains the unfinished business of the [[Yugoslav Wars]], and every Serbian government has been judged by how it handles the question. > [!note] Related pages > The war of 1998–99 is covered on [[Yugoslav Wars]]. Serbia's side of the story is on [[Serbia]]. ## Basics - **Population:** about 1.6 million in the 2024 census, down about 12% since 2011. The census counts about 92% of residents as Albanian. Most Serbs boycotted it, especially in the four northern municipalities around North Mitrovica, so the official Serb figure of about 2% is an estimate and is widely believed to be too low. - **Recognition:** contested. Kosovo's government counts **121 countries** recognising it, after Syria (October 2025) and the Bahamas (December 2025). Neutral tallies put the figure at about 110 UN members. Serbia says some states have withdrawn recognition, and some of the countries it names have denied doing so. Five EU members do not recognise Kosovo: Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus. - **Legal basis:** UN Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted when the 1999 war ended, still provides the framework. Serbia reads it as confirming its sovereignty. In July 2010 the International Court of Justice advised that Kosovo's declaration of independence "did not violate international law." - **Foreign presence:** NATO's **KFOR** has about 4,600 troops from 31 countries. In June 2026 NATO announced gradual reductions, partly reversing reinforcements sent after violence in 2023. The EU's **EULEX** rule-of-law mission, its largest civilian mission, has a mandate to June 2027. ## Serbia and Kosovo since 2008 | Date | Event | |---|---| | **17 Feb 2008** | Kosovo declares independence | | **22 Jul 2010** | The ICJ's advisory opinion | | **19 Apr 2013** | The EU-brokered **Brussels Agreement**: a single Kosovo police force including the Serb north, and a promised association of Serb-majority municipalities that has never been set up | | **4 Sep 2020** | The **Washington commitments** (below) | | **27 Feb – 18 Mar 2023** | A new EU normalisation plan. Serbia agrees not to block Kosovo's membership of international organisations, without recognising it. [[Aleksandar Vučić]] accepts it verbally but signs nothing, and Serbia then opposes Kosovo's application to the Council of Europe | | **24 Sep 2023** | **Banjska attack**: armed Kosovo Serbs kill a Kosovo police officer, Afrim Bunjaku, and three attackers die in a gun battle at a monastery. **Milan Radoičić**, vice-president of Srpska Lista, the Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party, admits organising the group. Serbia detained him briefly and has not tried him. In April 2026 a Kosovo court convicted three of the attackers, two of them to life | ## The Trump deal On **4 September 2020**, in the Oval Office, Kosovo's prime minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbia's president Vučić each signed a near-identical page of commitments brokered by [[Donald Trump]]'s special envoy, [[Richard Grenell]]. Analysts described them as political promises made to Washington rather than a treaty between the two countries. Much of the content served American and Israeli goals rather than the Balkan dispute: - Serbia would move its embassy in [[Israel]] to Jerusalem by July 2021. - Israel and Kosovo would recognise each other, and Kosovo would open its embassy in Jerusalem. - For a year, Serbia would pause its campaign to get countries to withdraw recognition of Kosovo, and Kosovo would pause its applications to international bodies. - Both would remove 5G equipment from "untrusted vendors," meaning [[Huawei]], and designate [[Hezbollah]] a terrorist organisation. - They would cooperate on roads, rail and a shared lake. Kosovo kept its side of the deal: Israel recognised it in February 2021, and Kosovo opened an embassy in Jerusalem. Serbia's embassy stayed in Tel Aviv. ## Kosovo and the second Trump administration - **April 2025:** a 10% US tariff on Kosovo (Serbia's was 37%). That August, Prime Minister Albin Kurti dropped Kosovo's tariffs on US goods and thanked [[Donald Trump]]. - **June 2025:** Kosovo agreed to take up to 50 people deported from the United States who are not Kosovars, for one year (see [[Third-Country Removal]]). - **12 September 2025:** the US embassy suspended its strategic dialogue with Kosovo indefinitely, citing "actions and statements" by Kurti's caretaker government. It came five weeks after Secretary of State [[Marco Rubio]] agreed to a strategic dialogue with Serbia. ## Politics, 2025–2026 Kosovo spent most of 2025 and 2026 in a political deadlock. Kurti's party, Vetëvendosje (Self-Determination), won the February 2025 election but fell short of a majority, and the Assembly could not even elect a speaker for months. A snap election in December 2025 gave it 57 of 120 seats. Kurti's government was approved in February 2026, but the failure to elect a president forced a third election in June 2026. Kurti was re-elected prime minister on **13 September 2026**. In early October the Assembly elected **Justina Shiroka Pula**, an economist and head of Kosovo's Academy of Sciences, as president. Her election rested on a deal between Vetëvendosje and the opposition PDK. On 16 September 2026 the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague sentenced **Hashim Thaçi**, Kosovo's former president and wartime guerrilla leader, to 25 years for war crimes. Weeks of protest in Pristina followed. > [!important] ⭐ The finding: Vučić's defeat does not soften Serbia on Kosovo > The Student List that beat [[Aleksandar Vučić]] in October 2026 is not a conciliatory force on Kosovo. Its programme pledges to keep Kosovo part of Serbia, rejects the "so-called Republic of Kosovo," and accuses Vučić's government of dismantling Serbian institutions there. Some of its candidates called Kosovo "temporarily occupied territory" and want to undo earlier deals with Pristina on energy, licence plates and the Serbian dinar. In Serbian politics, opposing the corruption of the man who ran Milošević's propaganda does not mean abandoning the national cause he campaigned on. That puts the new government at odds with the EU's normalisation plan, which is a condition of membership. See [[Serbian Student Movement]]. ## See Also - [[Serbia]] · [[Yugoslav Wars]] · [[Slobodan Milošević]] · [[Aleksandar Vučić]] · [[Serbian Student Movement]] · [[2026 Serbian Parliamentary Election]] · [[Richard Grenell]] · [[Albania]] · [[NATO]] · [[European Union]] · [[Serbian Influence]]