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Pristina, Kosovo:
In addition to his personal golf golf equipment and motels, Donald Trump could quickly have a lake named after him following proposals to christen a contested Balkan reservoir in his honour.
The lake in query is a 24-kilometre (15-mile) stretch of water straddling the border of former battle foes Serbia and Kosovo, who each declare possession and have totally different names for it.
An enormous banner appeared Thursday on Kosovo’s facet of the reservoir studying “Lake Trump”, whereas one other hung over a bridge thanked Trump for “bringing peace” following current US-brokered agreements between Kosovo and Serbia.
The tussle over possession of the lake — known as Ujman in Kosovo and Gazivode in Serbia — is one in all many disputes nonetheless haunting the neighbours 20 years after they broke aside in battle.
After the banners emerged, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti wrote on Twitter that he “welcomed” the proposal to rename the physique of water “Lake Trump” in honour of the “historic economic normalization agreement” signed on the White House in early September.
The agreements, which analysts mentioned have been mild on substance regardless of Trump’s insistence on their “historic” nature, included a dedication to a feasibility research for “sharing” the lake.
According to Trump advisor Richard Grenell, who led talks on the agreements, the concept of Lake Trump was initially a joke.
“There was this incredible fight about the name so I kind of jokingly said… well, I’m going to keep referring to it as Lake Trump”, Grenell mentioned in an interview with a US discuss present.
“And both leaders jumped at it and said — I’m OK with Lake Trump, let’s call it Lake Trump”, he added.
Serbia’s authorities has not but commented on the matter.
Three quarters of the reservoir lies in Kosovo, whereas the remainder is in Serbia.
But the dispute isn’t just a quarrel in regards to the identify.
The lake is the essential supply of ingesting water for greater than a 3rd of Kosovo’s 1.eight million inhabitants, and a cooling supply for the coal vegetation that produce nearly all of Kosovo’s electrical energy.
Serbia, which nonetheless doesn’t recognise its former province’s independence, considers the lake its property.
Locals within the surrounding space, a northern a part of Kosovo residence primarily to ethnic Serbs, have been unclear of who was behind the naming initiative.
“I don’t know who put the signs and banners”, Srdjan Vulovic, a neighborhood mayor, advised AFP.
Ordinary individuals had blended views.
“I can put a sign on a building that says Dragica’s building, but that won’t make it mine, or change its name. There are procedures on how to rename a lake”, Dragica Jeftic, a pensioner from Mitrovica advised AFP.
But Bojan Savic, a pupil, thought it was “not a bad idea”.
“It has echoed around the world, and it is good that we have American support”.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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