Why Kosovo's stand-off with Serbs goes on 15 years after statehood
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00:00 The current tensions in Kosovo between Albanians and Serbs have their roots in a decades-long
00:05 ethnic conflict.
00:07 The separatist Kosovo Liberation Army mounted a campaign against Yugoslav installations
00:12 throughout the late 1990s.
00:14 A series of massacres by Serbian security forces prompted NATO to step in in 1999.
00:21 The coalition bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days, eventually forcing President Slobodan Milosevic
00:28 to withdraw his troops from the region.
00:31 An estimated 11,000 people died in the conflict and many more, both Serbs and Albanians, fled
00:37 the region.
00:39 The United Nations placed Kosovo under a transitional administration and installed the KFOR peacekeeping
00:45 force.
00:46 In 2008, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rulers unilaterally declared independence from Serbia.
00:53 Belgrade protested but the International Court of Justice ruled that the declaration did
00:58 not violate international law.
01:01 The new state was recognised by 101 countries but remains excluded from several international
01:07 organisations such as the UN, largely because of Russia and China's support for Serbia.
01:13 Serbia has never accepted Kosovo's independence as it considers the region to be the cradle
01:18 of the nation.
01:20 Though Serbs make up only about 7% of the population, they are a majority in some parts.
01:26 They have long boycotted Kosovo's censuses and elections.
01:31 Mediators have tried to bring about a rapprochement between Kosovo and Serbia, as with the Brussels
01:36 agreement of 2013, which would have given the Serb minority greater autonomy.
01:42 But neither Pristina nor Belgrade has ratified the agreement.
01:46 In recent months there have been further attempts to strike a deal but deadlock remains, with
01:51 each side accusing the other of intransigence.