Schoolchildren in Kosovo welcome Biden

Schoolchildren in Kosovo waved US flags and posters as they lined the route from Pristina airport to give US Vice President Joe Biden a hero’s welcome. Biden will become the highest-ranking US official to visit Kosovo since its ethnic Albanian-dominated parliament seceded from Serbia and was promptly recognised by the United States last year. Coming after trips to Bosnia and Serbia, his trip to Kosovo is the final stop the US vice president is to make on a landmark tour of the Balkans to demonstrate US engagement in the volatile region.

It was in contrast to his previous stop, Serbia, where police lined the streets amid nationalist anger. Mr Biden is due to address Kosovo's parliament and to receive its highest honour - the Golden Medal of Freedom. The vice-president's visit to Kosovo is the first by a senior US official since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in February 2008.The US and more than 50 other countries have since recognised Kosovo's independence, but more than 100 have not, including Serbia and Russia. Serbian President Boris Tadic told Mr Biden on Tuesday that his country would never give up its claim to Kosovo.

But despite that outstanding issue, and the antipathy of many Serbs to the country that led a Nato bombing campaign to expel Serb forces from Kosovo in 1999, Mr Biden and the pro-Western Mr Tadic exchanged warm words. Mr Biden said: "The United States does not, I emphasise, does not expect Serbia to recognise the independence of Kosovo. "It is not a precondition for our relationship or our support for Serbia becoming part of the European Union," he said. Mr Tadic said Serbia and the US could move their relationship forward "on the basis of dialogue rooted in mutual respect". As well as Serbia and Kosovo, he has also visited Bosnia.

In Belgrade, Biden said the United States does not expect Serbia to recognise the independence of Kosovo, the ethnic Albanian-majority province that broke away from Serbia on February 17, 2008. In Bosnia a day earlier, however, he stressed Washington's decision to recognise Kosovo would not be reviewed by the four-month-old administration of US President Barack Obama. "This independence, while young, is irreversible, and critically important to this region’s stability and progress," he said in a speech to Bosnian lawmakers.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children