(ANSA-AFP) - BELGRADE, JUN 28 - Serbian authorities on
Thursday banned a festival highlighting the cultures of
neighbouring Kosovo, just hours before the event was due to
begin. There has been animosity between Serbia and its former
province, Kosovo, since a war in the late 1990s when Kosovo
sought to break away. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a
move Serbia has refused to acknowledge because it considers
Kosovo the nation's historic homeland. The annual "Good Day"
festival, which takes place simultaneously in the Serbian
capital, Belgrade, and the Kosovar capital, Pristina, highlights
Kosovo's Serbian and ethnic Albanian communities. This year's
festival was scheduled to start Thursday evening with a
performance of the play "Father and Father" in Belgrade. But
Serbia's Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said "no gatherings will
be permitted" at the festival venue, according to an official
statement. (ANSA-AFP).
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