US envoy urges Kosovo and Serbia to take tough decisions to restart talks on normalizing ties

By FLORENT BAJRAMI and LLAZAR SEMINI
Associated Press

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — A senior U.S. official has reassured top officials in Kosovo that the burdens of normalizing relations with longtime rival Serbia would be borne by both sides. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar met with officials in Kosovo on Wednesday in the latest American effort to restart talks on normalizing ties between Kosovo and Serbia, after Kosovo made a controversial decision to ban ethnic Serbs in its territory from using the Serbian dinar. The central bank’s ban sparked new tensions and threatened to cause chaos in Serbian-speaking areas, where the dinar is widely used to pay pensions and salaries to staff in Serbian-run institutions including schools and hospitals, fueling Western concerns about regional tensions as a full-scale war rages in Ukraine.