Serbia won the green light on Friday to start negotiations by January on joining the European Union, capping a remarkable transformation in the prospects of the biggest former Yugoslav republic since the 1990s warsv, Reuters reported. The decision, taken at an EU summit, rewards Belgrade for an April deal to improve relations with its former province of Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in a 1998-99 guerrilla war. EU leaders also agreed Brussels should launch negotiations with Kosovo on a so-called association agreement, which covers trade, economic and political relations and is a step on the path to eventual EU membership. The leaders agreed talks would start in January 2014 "at the very latest" with Serbia, which was long treated as a pariah because of its central role in the wars that tore through the Balkans after the 1991 collapse of Yugoslavia. Serbia and Kosovo have been at odds since Kosovo seceded in 2008 with Western backing. After months of EU-brokered talks, the two sides reached an agreement in April aimed at ending the virtual ethnic partition of Kosovo between its ethnic Albanian majority and a pocket of some 50,000 Serbs in the north. The agreement still has to be fully implemented, and EU governments will assess progress before giving a final, formal go-ahead to talks later this year. The EU negotiation process should help drive reforms in Serbia, the largest country to emerge from the former Yugoslavia, luring investors to its ailing economy. -- SPA 19:29 LOCAL TIME 16:29 GMT تغريد
