New bridge over Ibar opens for vehicle passage

The opening of the 36th bridge over the Ibar River, which divides the city of Mitrovica in the Albanian-majority south and the Serb-dominated north, to vehicles, was made one day after the asphalting works were completed and six days before the official deadline, scheduled for September 1. Since the early hours of Tuesday, the new bridge has been frequented by numerous citizens who qualified its opening as welcome for all residents.

The new bridge built over the Ibar River, which divides Mitrovica into the Albanian-majority south and the predominantly Serb-populated north, was opened on Tuesday as a new alternative for the movement of city residents.

The opening of the 36th bridge over the Ibar River to vehicles was made one day after the asphalting works were completed and six days before the official deadline, scheduled for September 1.

Since the early hours of the morning, the new bridge has been frequented by numerous citizens, who have documented the event with photographs using their smartphone cameras.

After taking a walk on it, citizen Hamdi Shartari praised the opening of the bridge as welcome for all residents.

"This bridge helps a lot... For example, we go back to Kroi i Vitakut there, or to Minatorë over there at Kodra e Minatorëve, there are Albanians who have lived in those conditions... if someone gets sick, the health center is right here by this bridge. And now imagine how long it takes for him (the resident) to come from there, whether on foot or by car, and to go around and around to the bridge there, to the train station and in these crowds, and in these columns, and to come to the health center, in an emergency," he said.

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Another citizen of Mitrovica, Naim Beqiri, expressed a similar position.

"It is a great pleasure to see the construction of the bridge, a project that should have been done many years ago... it is a great, indescribable pleasure. I also see it as very right that they built it new, because that bridge over there could have had defects because it was finished many years ago," said Beqiri.

In addition to citizens' vehicles, there were also many Kosovo Police vehicles on the new bridge on Tuesday. The Police announced that starting on Tuesday, the Special Unit teams left the area, remaining on the ground until the completion of the bridge works. 

Veton Elshani, Deputy Director of Police for the Northern Region, has called on citizens not to initiate provocations following the opening of the new bridge over the Ibar. 

"Today the decision was made to release it. We have removed the special units, now it is the police officers for a few more days until the citizens get used to this view, that it is just a bridge, also to show the citizens that they do not need to provoke, as well as for the crossing in general in the north of the country that we are sending a message to the Albanian citizens that they do not need to come and provoke", said Elshani.

The acting Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Hysen Durmishi, has assessed that the bridge is stable and that technical acceptance will take place in the coming days.

"We have received the preliminary report on the stability of the bridge. For all the samples that were taken earlier, the beam, the concrete samples and the samples of the reinforcement that was used there, and we received a report that everything is in order, according to the project. This load testing is just a formality. It is a procedure that the contract has not been completed yet, the bridge has been completed and released for traffic, but the sidewalks will still be completed, there is still work to be done there until the complete technical acceptance of the contract is made," said Durmishi.

And the acting Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, through a post on Facebook, congratulated the citizens of Mitrovica on the opening of the bridge.

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"It took less than two months to build the 36th bridge in Kosovo over the Ibar River. The bridge for vehicles is open for traffic as of 9:00 today," Kurti wrote.

A similar post was made by the acting Minister of Internal Affairs, Xhelal Sveçla, when he published photos of cars crossing the new bridge.

In addition to the new bridge opened on Tuesday for vehicles, another one for pedestrians is being built over the Ibar River. Their construction, with a total value of around 3 million euros, has started following a memorandum between the Ministry of Infrastructure and the municipalities of South and North Mitrovica.

Shortly after the start of the works, the Special Prosecution Office launched an investigation into the contract on suspicion of misuse of public funds. The entire project has been followed by reactions from the international community and from the Srpska List, the largest political entity of Kosovo Serbs and which has the support of official Belgrade.

In this party, they opposed their construction and in this function they have also initiated a petition with over 3.500 signatures.

The European Union (EU) has said that the construction of two new bridges over the Ibar River "has practical and political importance" and that any infrastructure project between North and South Mitrovica requires close coordination and dialogue between all communities involved.

The two new bridges in Mitrovica have been built near the central one, which is part of the Agreement on Freedom of Movement reached within the framework of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue facilitated by the official Brussels. This bridge is open only to pedestrians, while the Government had announced in July last year its opening to vehicles, in what has provoked tensions and reactions from the international community. Kosovo and Serbia had agreed within the framework of the dialogue for the normalization of relations that the bridge would be opened to traffic in 2014. For this, the revitalization and removal of all barricades placed on the bridge by local Serbs is foreseen.

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In 2016, a new implementation plan was agreed to overcome disagreements over interpretations of previous agreements. According to this plan, the bridge was to open to traffic in January 2017.

Revitalization works were completed in June 2018, but the bridge, in which 1.5 million euros were invested, has never been opened to vehicles.