The Latest Breaking News from Albin Kurti

A new mayor has been sworn in in northern Kosovo after a vote that was boycotted by the ethnic Serb minority which dominates the area

Leaders of Kosovo and Serbia failed to agree on how to lower tensions in Serb-majority areas in north Kosovo, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday, warning that any further escalation could undermine the EU-backed deal on normalising ties.

After more than a decade of negotiations, EU wants Balkan neighbours to settle on plan and put hostilities to rest.

The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo are meeting in Brussels to continue talks on the implementation of a European Union-backed 11-point plan to normalize the ties between the two, but tension continue to simmer

The European Union called on Kosovo's government and ethnic Serbs to start a "serious dialogue" to bring them back into state institutions after they boycotted local elections to press demands for more autonomy.

The main political party in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo called on the Serb community on Friday to boycott Sunday's local elections in the latest sign of a deepening rift with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership.

European Union parliamentarians on Tuesday gave the green light for citizens from Kosovo to travel freely in Europe without visas from next year. Kosovo, once a Serbian province in the former Yugoslavia, is the last territory in the Western Balkans without visa-free travel to the EU's Schengen travel area.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday that ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo will not participate in local elections due to be held later this month - a move likely to aggravate current disagreements over Pristina's rule.

Kosovo will respect its international obligations and implement the measures agreed last week as part of a deal aimed at normalising relations with Serbia, Prime Minister Albin Kurti told lawmakers on Thursday.

The United States envoy for the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue has welcomed the recent European Union-facilitated deal on normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia as an “important and historic agreement.”

Serbia wants normal relations with Kosovo but still won't sign any agreement with it, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday, a day after he verbally agreed to implement a Western-backed plan for the normalisation of ties.