The Ibër Bridge was scheduled to open for traffic in 2017

This insistence has been met with opposition from the international community, which has demanded an additional step, a new discussion in Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. Meanwhile, the issue prompted Kosovo Serbs to protest, rejecting the opening of the bridge.

Mitrovica's “Bridge should be opened without delay and further obstacles”.

This sentence has been repeated several times in several European Union reports describing progress in implementing the agreement between Kosovo and Serbia on opening the bridge over the Iber River.

This bridge that divides South Mitrovica by Albanian majority and Serb majority North was blocked for the first time after the war in 1999.

Although agreements and agreement were reached over the years, invested in its infrastructure, as well as opening for pedestrian circulation, Ibri's bridge continues to be blocked for vehicles.

In the 2023 EU report alone, the sentence was added to the bridge issue: ” For any decision to open the bridge should have reconciliation and co-ordination in dialogue”.

It was early in 2023 that the Communist Assembly of North Mitrovica had made a decision to open the bridge.

They had said they based the decision on the Brussels Agreement, which had seen the opening of the bridge in 2015-2016.

The initiative for opening the bridge for vehicles intensified in recent weeks by the Government of Kosovo.

On July 24th 2024, the Kosovo Ministry of Infrastructure opened a tender for testing “the owner of the existing bridge structure”.

On August 1st, according to documents published on the public procurement website, the ministry awarded the company contract I EP- PROING KPS, headquartered in Pristina. The price of the contract is set to be 9,640 euros, and its signing was set to take place on 6 August.

However, the signed contract is not public.

The Ministry of Infrastructure and neither the winning company have responded to the question when it was previously started and finished testing.

According to local media reports, workers of this company have already been seen conducting technical inspections of the bridge.

A technical inspection of the bridge's supporting power was also envisioned with the agreement reached by Kosovo- Serbia, as a step to be carried out prior to its opening for vehicle flow.

For the initiative, protests were staged by Kosovo Serbs in the north of the country, who are opposing the opening of the bridge.

“We are under attack as a people, we are under aggression to leave Kosovo”, former Serbian Judge Nikola Kabashiq said during the protest.

This same day, Kosovo's Minister of Internal Affairs said opening the bridge is a matter of time and “is not at all a question of dialogue.

The case has been closed since 2016. It is a question of the right to open up and of a decision that is already public”, he said.

Without providing much details on the issue of technical inspection, he said it is under way and is being carried out in two phases.

Although they do not want dialogue in Brussels for the bridge, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said they plan public discussion from the North Mitrovica municipality with citizens for “benefits from the opening of the” bridge.

The Mitrovica Bridge on Iber has long kept us at a distance. She has been unjustly given the superiority of division and abnormal relations. Bridges unite us, and together let's make that symbol of normalization”, Kurti wrote on Facebook on July 7th.

What was said in the bridge opening agreement?

When Ibri Bridge was blocked in 1999, Mitrovica was still an inseparable city.

The split in two municipalities was formalised in 2013, when North Mitrovica was established as the new municipality.

Meanwhile, barricades began on the Ibër Bridge in 2011. Thus, the reopening of the bridge became a topic of discussion in the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue that produced the first results three years later.

July 22, 2014 The EU leader's conclusions are reached to remove barricades and revitrate the bridge in Mitrovica.

The published plan, according to the EU, included: conducting a technical assessment of the bridge's stability, drafting a bridge revising project, removing barricades...

In this plan, the EU had pledged to be included directly with financing.

Prior to this conclusion, in 2014, barricades on the bridge were replaced with concrete and tree fragments, which the then North Mitrovica leadership called “Peace Park”.

August 5, 2016

After a round of talks, Kosovo and Serbia had agreed that the revitive of the bridge and its surrounding parts would begin on August 14th 2016.

The “Ura will open for traffic on January 20th, 2017”, this action plan said.

The sides even agreed to design what the bridge would look like.

August 25th 2015- A deal is also reached on implementation of the bridge opening agreement.

This document again mentions the plan of revitive and opening the bridge in accordance with previous arrangements.

It also requires reaching an agreement on the municipal borders of North and South Mitrovica by October 2015.

In December 2016, a wall was built on this bridge, which Kosovo authorities, as well as the EU, called illegal. The wall had left a few weeks later.

In 2018, the first works by the EU on the Ibër Bridge had been completed and the cost of the project was estimated to be around 1.5m euros.

“Works on the Mitrovica bridge have been completed and the bridge should be opened for the flow of vehicles without delay or further obstacles”, the EU report said in 2019.

The bridge, however, never opened for circulation.

KFOR forces, the Italian Carabinieri, respectively, remain on the bridge, the REL reports.