Kosovo was to be granted full sovereignty by the West on Monday, over four years since its hotly contested declaration of independence, in a celebration marred by new Serbian allegations of organ trafficking. Western powers in the International Steering Group — which has overseen Kosovo since its 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia — are set to announce the end of supervision over the territory. Kosovo and its two million majority ethnic-Albanian population has been under some form of international administration since a NATO bombing campaign forced then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s troops out of the Serbian province in 1999. The ISG — which consists of 23 European Union countries, the United States and Turkey — will formally announce the end of its supervision after an afternoon meeting. Kosovo’s president Atifete Jahjaga said Monday that Kosovo deserved to become equal with others. “Kosovo today is a country that fulfils all the conditions to become a state with a clear Euro-Atlantic integration perspective,” she said in an address to the nation just hours before the ISG meeting. But Serbia — which has never accepted Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, 2008 — dismissed the sovereignty announcement as meaningless. Kosovo’s independence has been recognised by some 90 countries, including most EU nations, but is rejected by Serbia, Russia and Kosovo’s own ethnic Serbs, who make up about six percent of the population, living mainly in the north on the border with Serbia. Serbia’s top official for Kosovo, Aleksandar Vulin, said the decision to end ISG supervision was a “historic and tragic mistake”. Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic stressed Belgrade would never recognise Kosovo’s independence “supervised or unsupervised”, and dismissed the ISG decision as meaningless. The granting of full sovereignty was further marred by a Serbian prosecutor’s revelation on the eve of the ISG’s meeting that Belgrade has a former Kosovo rebel witness who allegedly took part in removing the heart of a Serb prisoner for the international black market in organs during the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict.
