Greece and Turkey bowed to EU and NATO pressure on Monday and opened the first direct talks in nearly five years over their explosive eastern Mediterranean standoff, AFP reported.

Ramush Haradinaj, the leader of the Alliance for Kosovo (ABK) and a candidate for Kosovo's president, accused the European Union on Monday with neglecting Pristina and pushing it to unite with neighbouring Albania, Serbia’s Beta/N1 reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he wanted to improve relations with the European Union and was hoping for the same “goodwill” from the 27-nation bloc. Erdogan’s comments follow a year of tensions involving Turkey’s more assertive foreign policy in the eastern Mediterranean as well as Libya and parts of the Middle East, AFP reports.

Days of heavy rain and snow across the Balkans left homes and fields flooded, disrupted traffic on highways and at ports and caused power outages.

Kosovo’s acting president Vjosa Osmani set 14 February as the date for an early parliamentary election, following a decision by the country's top court to annul the June parliamentary vote. "The Election Commission is instructed to take all necessary actions to hold the elections," Osmani said in a written statement.

The European Commission announced on Sunday an additional €3.5m in humanitarian aid to help vulnerable refugees and migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina facing a humanitarian disaster.

Hundreds of migrants were stranded on Saturday in a squalid, burnt-out tent camp in Bosnia as heavy snow fell in the country and winter temperatures suddenly dropped, AP reported.

Nearly 5,000 doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccines were flown on Tuesday to Serbia, the first country in the Balkans to get a COVID-19 vaccine, news wires reported.

Kosovo was preparing to call new elections Tuesday after the constitutional court ruled the election of Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti in June was unconstitutional.

Long-entrenched ethno-nationalists were projected to win the first local election in Bosnia’s southern city of Mostar in 12 years, but early results of Sunday’s vote also indicated multiethnic parties and alliances would be a strong part of the future city council, AP reported.