Serbs Mark 1,000 Days From Killing Of Moderate Kosovar Serb Politician Ivanovic

Hundreds of Serbs lit candles on October 12 in Belgrade to mark 1,000 days since the assassination of moderate Kosovar Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic in January 2018 and to demand greater efforts to solve the crime.

Ivanovic was shot dead in front of his party office in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, a predominantly Serb area of mainly ethnic Albanian Kosovo.

Dragan Djilas, head of Serbia's opposition center-left Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), who attended the commemoration, said Ivanovic had been ready "to fight for Serbia's interests but also to communicate with Kosovo Albanians."

Kosovo authorities have indicted six people in connection with Ivanovic's killing, but Kosovo's Appellate Court ordered a retrial.

More than a decade since Kosovo proclaimed independence, around 40,000 Serbs in northern Kosovo refuse to recognize Pristina institutions and see Belgrade as their capital.

Normalization of tense relations with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, is a key condition for Serbia's entry into the European Union.

Belgrade and Pristina agreed to take steps towards economic cooperation in agreements signed at the White House last month.

With reporting by Reuters