Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called for restraint after a shootout in Kosovo between armed Serbs and police left four dead in the country’s bloodiest clash in almost two decades, including an ethnic Albanian policeman.
(Bloomberg) — Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called for restraint after a shootout in Kosovo between armed Serbs and police left four dead in the country’s bloodiest clash in almost two decades, including an ethnic Albanian policeman.
Kosovo police said the shootout that began early Sunday involved about 30 suspects who blocked a road near the northern village of Banjska, then broke into a Serb Orthodox monastery from where they continued firing, triggering a standoff that lasted for hours. Officers later found “hundreds of weapons” including grenades, shells and assault rifles, Kosovo police said in a statement.
The escalation followed the collapse of European Union-mediated talks between Serbia and Kosovo. Both Balkan nations need to mend ties to qualify for EU membership. It was the deadliest incident of its kind in Kosovo since interethnic clashes in 2004.
Vucic condemned the police officer’s killing and acknowledged that the gunmen were ethnic Serbs while seeking to blamed Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti.
“I’ve been warning for months that resistance is rising among the people, in the north and everywhere where the people want to organize themselves,” Vucic told reporters in Belgrade. “All of this is Albin Kurti’s fault.”
Earlier Sunday, Kurti denounced the shooting as a “criminal and terrorist attack” on his Facebook page and alleged that the gunmen had “political, financial and logistical support from official Belgrade.”
Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, has been engaged in EU-brokered talks with its northern neighbor for years with little visible progress.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, condemned the “hideous” attack, saying in a statement that “all facts about the attack need to be established” and that the perpetrators “must face justice.”
Read more: EU’s Borrell Raps Kosovo and Serbia for Failing to Ease Tensions
The return of tensions is likely to intensify concerns for the region that is still dogged by the legacy of the 1990s Balkan wars and raise the risk of another conflict on the EU periphery. It follows the unrest in May, when scores of NATO peacekeepers and ethnic Serb protesters were injured.
Tension remains high as Kosovo isn’t ready to give up control over some of its territory and Serbia refuses to recognize the independence of Kosovo, which it views as its own and a cradle of the Orthodox nation. Any solution would need to be enforced by the international community that has supported Kosovo’s creation and still finances a peacekeeping mission there. Russia and China, meanwhile, back Serbia.
(Updates with Kosovo police saying one attacker killed in sixth paragraph.)
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