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German Chancellor Merkel To Visit Kosovo

December 16, 2011

PRISTINA -- German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to visit Kosovo on December 19, RFE/RL's Kosovo Unit reports.

The German Embassy in Pristina confirmed that Merkel is to visit German peacekeeping troops in Kosovo and will meet with Kosovo officials.

Thirty German and Austrian soldiers were injured on November 28, some by small-arms fire and Molotov cocktails, when hundreds of Serbs resisted an attempt by NATO peacekeepers to remove roadblocks erected by Serbs in the north of Kosovo.

Kosovo Serbs have been blocking some roads in the north to stop the country's majority ethnic Albanian-dominated leadership from extending its control over the part of the country populated mostly by ethnic Serbs.

While addressing the German parliament early this month, Merkel said the confrontations between NATO soldiers and Serbs on the border with Kosovo show that Serbia is not yet ready to be a candidate for European Union membership.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/german_chancellor_merkel_to_visit_kosovo/24424268.html

Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.