Serb wall in Kosovo city pulled down with no incidents

PRISTINA / AP

A concrete wall erected in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica that has provoked tensions between Kosovo and neighboring Serbia has been pulled down. The move followed an agreement between the government and the country’s ethnic Serb minority, facilitated by the European Union and the United States embassy.
The wall’s destruction by two excavators on Sunday was not accompanied by any incidents. Police forces were on high alert.
The border tensions started with the wall in December and increased other incidents in January, including a Serbian nationalist train that was stopped at the border. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Serbia has not recognized it as a separate country, seeking to maintain influence in northern Kosovo where most of the Serb minority lives.