U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday welcomed his Serbian counterpart for talks on the conflict in Ukraine, and called for greater transparency in trying to implement a fragile ceasefire.

Serbia took over the presidency of the multinational body OSCE, which has hundreds of monitors in Ukraine trying to observe whether Russia, pro-Moscow rebels and the Kiev government are sticking by a second truce agreed earlier this month.

The U.N.'s highest court on Tuesday rejected rival claims of genocide by Croatia and Serbia in landmark rulings over the 1991-1995 war, as both former foes reluctantly accepted the verdict and pledged to turn the page on their bloody history.

Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic said he hoped the judgment would help the two Balkans neighbors to find "lasting peace," while his Croatian counterpart Ivo Josipovic called on politicians to work together to build good relationships. 

The U.N.'s highest International Court of Justice on Tuesday hands down its ruling in a long-running genocide case that could reopen old wounds between former foes Croatia and Serbia.

Zagreb in 1999 dragged Belgrade before the ICJ on genocide charges relating to Croatia's war of independence that raged in 1991-95 following the collapse of the former Yugoslavia.

Exiled Palestinian strongman Mohammed Dahlan, a rival of President Mahmoud Abbas, has been granted Serbian citizenship, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) reported Friday.

"Dahlan, his wife and four children, a nephew and five key political supporters were all granted citizenship between February 2013 and June 2014," BIRN said.

At least 37 people, including 22 police officers, were injured Tuesday, when Kosovo police clashed with thousands of violent protesters demanding the dismissal of a Serb minister accused of insulting the ethnic-Albanian majority.

Police fired tear gas and deployed a water cannon in scuffles with protesters after a few thousand supporters of the nationalist Self-Determination opposition party tried to break into the government building in the center of the capital Pristina, an AFP correspondent reported.

Police in Kosovo fired tear gas to disperse groups of stone-throwing protesters Saturday as thousands took to the streets of Pristina to demand the dismissal of a Serb minister accused of insulting the ethnic Albanian majority.

The clashes erupted at the end of a rally in the capital at which some 7,000 people, according to police, called on the government to fire Labor and Social Welfare Minister Aleksandar Jablanovic, one of three Serb ministers in Prime Minister Isa Mustafa's cabinet.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic is to make a landmark visit Wednesday to Kosovo, the former Serbian province that unilaterally declared independence in 2008 to the fury of Belgrade. 

Vucic's highly symbolic visit for Orthodox New Year will include stops in Serbian enclaves but no meetings with Kosovo's leaders, Belgrade announced. 

Kosovo authorities said Friday a potential car bombing was thwarted in Pristina on Christmas day when police stopped a Serbian in a vehicle packed with a large quantity of explosives.

Bosnian police on Tuesday arrested 10 former high ranking Bosnian Serb police and soldiers suspected of killing dozens of Muslim civilians at the start of the country's 1992-1995 war.

Bosnian prosecutors on Friday indicted 15 former ethnic Serb police officers and soldiers for killing more than 150 Muslim civilians at the start of the country's inter-ethnic war in the 1990s.

"It is one of the largest indictments for war crimes in the region of Prijedor" in northwestern Bosnia, a prosecutors statement said.