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France's Wahid Hambli strikes Patriot Behrami at the European Boxing Championship 2020.
Entry to the World Cup was denied to athletes from Kosovo
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James Chance / Getty Images
Serbia has denied boxers from Kosovo entry to the world championship of the amateur world association Aiba in Belgrade.
The Kosovar Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla-Schwarz and Sports Minister Hajrullah Ceku confirmed the incident in a letter to the association, as the media reported in Pristina late on Saturday evening.
The athletes were turned away at the border by the Serbian authorities because they were wearing tracksuits with the Kosovar state symbols.
"We were told that we could cross the border, but only without the symbols of Kosovo," said Latif Demolli, head of the Kosovar boxing association, according to the sports information service.
Kosovo, now almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians, used to belong to Serbia.
After an armed uprising by the Kosovar Albanians and a NATO intervention in 1999, the country was initially administered by the United Nations (UN) before it declared itself independent in 2008.
To this day, Serbia is not ready to recognize Kosovo as its own state and demands the return of Kosovar territory.
In the past few months, tensions between the Balkan neighbors have increased, among other things because Serbia does not want to recognize Kosovar license plates.
Securitized right to participate
In her letter to Aiba, the Kosovar minister and her colleague wrote: "We express our great concern about the discrimination against our boxing selection."
The men's World Cup will take place in Belgrade until November 6th.
In a statement on the incident, the world association stated: "Aiba expects that the delegation of the Kosovo boxing association will in no way be treated differently from that of any other Aiba member." The Serbian association had been contacted to find a solution.
Serbia initially made no statement.
sak / dpa / sid