You can’t miss the divide between West and East in Kosovo’s capital. Leaving Pristina’s bustling main thoroughfare named in honor of the modern-day Catholic saint, Mother Teresa, toward the city’s famous Bill Clinton Boulevard, you may pass along George Bush Street. There you’ll find Taste of America, which offers what might be the most stunning pecan pie you will ever have, before you bump into a statue of Senator Bob Dole. 

Take a sharp left, and you’ll see the striking brutalist national library, its 99 acrylic domes a nod to the region’s Ottoman past. Look just across the park and see the remnants of another legacy: an abandoned Serbian Orthodox church. Its golden crucifix still shines brightly from the dome, even as weeds and wild dogs stake their own claim. 

Kosovo is shaped by a mix of recent conflict, including much fighting, and a much older struggle, also involving much fighting. The peace is now maintained thanks to the constant presence of international peacekeepers in the form of KFOR, a 4,600-strong contingent dominated by Italy and the US, and the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), whose aim is to support the region’s legal institutions.  

The US presence of around 600 troops is regarded as critical to the force’s credibility and may be at risk once Washington begins European force drawdown discussions with allies later this year. Their departure would raise immediate questions about Europe’s willingness to maintain and use hard power, and whether Serbia and Russia would seek to stoke unrest. 

Whilst having a large Albanian ethnic population since the 15th century, Serbs have long viewed the province as the cradle of Serbian civilization, not least because of their heroic defeat here by the Ottomans in 1389.  

A little over 600 years later, during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the ethnic wars that ensued, Kosovo was the epicenter of a brutal conflict. The 1999 war ended with a NATO intervention that culminated in a 78-day bombing campaign of Serbia, ending the war and Serb hegemony in the region. 

Serbs make up just 8% of Kosovo’s population, but their presence is a continuing flashpoint in intercommunal relations. This is especially true in the northern city of Mitrovica, where fears of renewed conflict are never far away. Once one of the wealthiest cities in Yugoslavia, Mitrovica is now among the poorest in Kosovo. It is physically and politically divided by the Ibar River into two municipalities: Serb-majority North Mitrovica and the Albanian-majority south. 

On either end of the city’s “New Bridge”, closed to vehicle traffic since 2012, KFOR troops maintain the tense status quo. 

Just south of the bridge is Community Building Mitrovica (CBM), a local NGO founded in 2001 with the goal of fostering contact and dialogue between Serb and Albanian communities. Aferdita Syla is CBM’s executive director and has serious fears for a Kosovo future without NATO. 

“Right now, keeping NATO there is the safest thing for everyone. If we don’t have an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, things will get worse. If they withdraw, nothing has been solved, nothing has been agreed between Serbia and Kosovo.” 

Kosovo fears that a KFOR departure, or a loss of the political will to use it, would encourage action from Serbian troops stationed close to the border. “If NATO wasn’t here, I don’t think that those troops would remain in Serbia for long,” Syla said. “I think that some conflict would happen for sure if NATO pulled out.” 

Syla, like many Kosovars, doesn’t believe that time alone will heal old wounds. For her, true peace is less about the international presence and more about real integration — something that, after 25 years, still hasn’t happened. 

“The Serbian and Kosovo governments simply haven’t done enough to integrate people,” she said. “It has happened through institutions, but that hasn’t happened on the ground between normal citizens.” 

While some locals now cross Mitrovica’s bridge for shopping or errands, deep social divisions linger. The city has become symbolic — not just of Kosovo’s unresolved status, but of the fragility of progress when it isn’t supported by trust, dialogue, or political will. With municipal elections scheduled for October, Syla worries that politicians will once again use Mitrovica to score nationalist points rather than build peace. 

“There are a lot of challenges facing Kosovo,” she said. “We have a crisis with our government, sanctions from the EU, and corruption. But for us, politics is our biggest obstacle.” 

Kosovo is emblematic of a hard truth. Peacekeeping can freeze a conflict, but it cannot resolve it. For now, in places like Mitrovica, the presence of foreign troops may be the only thing holding the country together. 

Because while there is no longer the crack of gunfire nor the boom of artillery, the bridge between Kosovo and the city’s two communities is in limbo — neither fully open nor entirely closed. 

Syla knows better than most how fragile peace can be. Even now, with no visible signs of war, she says the absence of conflict doesn’t mean real reconciliation has taken root. 

“Mitrovica is still very much divided because a lot of people haven’t crossed the bridge and haven’t been in contact with the other community . . . The situation is far from what it should be 25 years later.” 

Éanna Mackey is a reporter based in Ireland with a background in geopolitics and economics. He has worked as a freelancer on post-conflict stories in both Northern Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he was an ICFJ Investigative Fellow in 2024. 

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.

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