In North Mitrovica, it seems that the situation is changing. The first Albanian businesses after 24 years have just opened their doors, doing what politics cannot do, removing the barricades that divide the city into two parts.

The journalist of News24 Renaldo Salianji was in North Mitrovica where he spoke with the owners of newly opened businesses, citizens and the mayor and brings us a panorama of what is happening in the city divided into two parts, by barricades and KFOR soldiers.

The Ibri Bridge is probably the only bridge in the world that does not serve to connect the two banks of a river, but to separate them.

In the northern part of the bridge, a convoy of the KFOR mission stays 24 hours a day. Over the years, politics has failed to find the language to remove these concrete blocks, but in this case, what politics has not done, business has done.
Among the Serbian flags painted on the promenade, which stand there as ragged witnesses of a not too distant conflicting past in this part of the state of Kosovo, the writings that this place is Serbian land, and the threatening glances of a neutral part on the other hand, some Kosovo businesses have opened their subsidiaries.

Apparently, some Serbs do not like Albanians, but Albanian sweets are their favorites. The administrator of Îmbëltore Misssini, Vesel Abdullahu, says that in southern Mitrovica there are many Seba customers who come from this part of the city, which is why he decided to open a point in the north of Mitrovica.

The first day has passed peacefully and without any incident, says Abdullahu, with the hope that the other days will be like this.
Xhaferr Tortoshi, who has spent 70 years of his life in northern Mitrovica, cannot hide his joy that Albanian businesses have already entered this part of the city.

Izet Tahiri has come from southern Mitrovica to drink coffee in the north and invites us to join him at the table.

He has been waiting for this moment for 24 years, and he invites other southern Albanians to support Albanian businesses.

There is no expectation from the Serbs of the north, but only from the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo, which according to him have made this country safer.

Even the Mayor of the Municipality of Mitrovica in the north, Erden Atiq, the first Albanian to head this municipality, attributes the opening of these businesses to the increased security that the north already offers.

Other businesses will be opened in the future, says Atiq, as well as institutions, such as the case of the Kosovo Post, which after 24 years has opened its branch in North Mitrovica.

However, not all Serbs accept this new reality. Under the raised flags of nationalization, a small group of Serbs, the attempts at intimidation, have passed from the Albanians to their compatriots.

The only thing that the Albanians of Mitrovica are looking for now is the opening of the bridge over the Ibër River. For President Atiq, the removal of these barricades will not be far-fetched.

Until this happens, even those Serbs who still nurture the idea of ​​a new invasion will probably be sweetened by Misini's cakes, and together with the flags fading on the "Petri the First" promenade, the idea nurtured by politics, for a new war.

(BalkanWeb)