NATO-led peacekeepers beefed up their presence in northern Kosovo, where local Serb protesters clashed with police and the international force days after an uptick in violence.
(Bloomberg) — NATO-led peacekeepers beefed up their presence in northern Kosovo, where local Serb protesters clashed with police and the international force days after an uptick in violence.
Peacekeepers on Monday had to use stun grenades to repel Serb protesters after they threw rocks and stun grenades at the soldiers in northern town of Zvecan, according to Koha Ditore, a local newspaper in Kosovo.
Earlier in the day, Kosovo’s mostly ethnic-Albanian police forces used pepper spray in response to tear gas hurled by hundreds of ethnic-Serb demonstrators who tried to block access of officials to municipal buildings in Serb-dominated towns.
The escalation of violence — the worst this year — erupted as Serb protesters tried to block newly elected ethnic-Albanian mayors from reaching their offices. The clashes have raised fears that a conflict could reignite between the Balkan neighbors.
“We call on all sides to refrain from actions that could inflame tensions or cause escalation,” the international force known as KFOR, which has been deployed in Kosovo after the 1998-99 war between Serbs and ethnic Albanians over Kosovo, said in a statement.
The flareup imperils a European Union-brokered, US-supported plan for the Balkan neighbors to normalize relations. KFOR urged the governments of Serbia and Kosovo to engage in the dialog to reduce tensions.
Following Friday’s clashes, the US and top European allies condemned Kosovo’s government for what they said were actions that provoked the unrest.
The clashes erupted when the mayors tried to access their offices against the recommendation of US and EU mediators. The officials had been elected in a local ballot in April that Serbs boycotted and called invalid.
Serbia’s army remained on high alert, a status ordered by President Aleksandar Vucic on Friday. He took similar steps last year when recurring tensions in Kosovo near the border nearly lapsed into fighting.
Schools in the Serb-populated areas of Kosovo were also closed on Monday, Zvecan’s former Serb mayor, Dragisa Milovic, said in live broadcast from the town.
The government in Belgrade refuses to recognize Kosovo as a country, and rejects its 2008 split from Serbia — a sticking point that is blocking both countries’ efforts to join the EU.
Western envoys have sought to defuse the dispute for years, without success. They have intensified those efforts again after Russia attacked Ukraine.
–With assistance from Jan Bratanic.
(Recasts with fresh tensions from first paragraph.)
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