“North still smuggling”, the north “has justice and law”

Nothing extraordinary. We have two opposing statements about this, Kosovo Customs Director Bahri Berisha and former chief for the negotiation process with Serbia Edita Tahiri.

No further than yesterday, the director of Kosovo Customs, during the publication of the study “Bottleneck”, aimed at identifying barriers to doing business in Kosovo, said the informal economy is still developing in the north, despite its insistence that the phenomenon has decreased.

It's a challenge that was mentioned by pre-speaking people, the black and informal economy issue in the northern part of Mitrovica. We're all aware of the situation there. What I want to assure you is that there is much more control by state institutions than it was a few years ago, we are present at the border crossings. A smuggling, which is under way there, is much smaller than it was many years ago, but is still developing through the green border line, which in this case requires a support and a comprehensive approach involving”, Berisha said during yesterday.

The opposite has been said by former negotiator with Belgrade Edita Tahiri, saying Kosovo has extended its authority to the north, despite the customs director says the control is not complete yet, Periscopi writes.

Kosovo has managed through Brussels' dialogue to establish justice and to set the border on the northern part by turning state authorities into that item”, it has said at a conference on the role of women in politics.

She has said that the dialogue she has led has achieved great successes, despite not all agreeing with her findings for the things she has done herself.

This very controversial dialogue, with paradoxes and controversy, has achieved major successes with the integration of the northern part of Kosovo into Kosovo's state system, judicial-coherent. Kosovo has managed to extend sovereignty in the northern part with state institutions that have not been ahead of dialogue”, she has said.

The northern issue is a complex situation. In a way, Prime Minister Haradinaj himself on several media presentations has acknowledged that Kosovo has no control over the north, showing how he meets with Milan Radojiciqi to negotiate about the extent of Kosovo's authority in that part.

Radojicic is a close man with Zvonko Veselinovic, and is known as a political influence man on the Serbian List, who also heads illegal structures and organises smuggling to northern Mitrovica. /Periscopi/