Kosovo, Serbia to restore air route 20 years after war

Gazeta Express

20/01/2020 12:44

German company Lufthansa AG has informed Kosovo authorities of opening of an air route for civilian flights between Pristina and Belgrade in a near future. The direct Belgrade-Pristina flight will be relaunched twenty years since the end of the war in Kosovo.

The announcement was made by the Deutsche Lufthansa AG during a ceremony at the US Embassy in Berlin, at the presence of the US Ambassador Richard Grenell, where representatives of the Lufthansa company handed over to Kosovo Civil Aviation Authority the letter of intent and asked Kosovo institutions to offer the necessary support for the flights to take place. Grenell was appointed last year as US President Donald Trump’s special envoy on Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.

Kosovo president Hashim Thaci in a Tweet welcomed the letter of intent between Kosovo and Lufthansa to open an air route between Prishtina and Belgrade. “This is an important step for the movement of citizens and normalization process.,” Thaci said and thanked US President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and German Ambassador to US, Richard Grenell, for facilitating the process.

General Director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Kosovo, Eset Berisha, said the letter represents a step forward in Kosovo’s commitment on full normalisation of its air space. “This would establish a direct contact between the two authorities of civil aviation, between Kosovo and Serbia, as equal partners,” Berisha stated.

Berisha thanked Ambassador Grenell the US administration and NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Kosovo – KFOR for their support in Kosovo’s efforts to fully normalize its air space and air traffic. /GazetaExpress/