An overnight shooting in a tense area near the Kosovo-Serbia border claimed the lives of a policeman and one of the attackers in the most serious escalation in months in its long-running territorial dispute between the two countries.
(Bloomberg) — An overnight shooting in a tense area near the Kosovo-Serbia border claimed the lives of a policeman and one of the attackers in the most serious escalation in months in its long-running territorial dispute between the two countries.
The two countries were quick to blame the other for the violence.
“We condemn this criminal and terrorist attack,” Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said on his Facebook page. Unidentified, masked gunmen opened fire on Kosovo police “with political, financial and logistical support from official Belgrade,” he wrote.
The shooting, which left another police officer seriously injured, took place in an area where the local Serb majority often defy the authority of Kosovo’s predominantly ethnic Albanian authorities. Kosovo police said their officers came under fire from an “arsenal” of weapons including hand grenades when they went to investigate two large trucks that were blocking a road in a border area near a Serbian Orthodox monastery.
At noon local time, about 30 people believed to have participated in the attack along with several bulletproof vehicles were still at the scene, surrounded by Kosovo police, Kurti said at a press conference in Pristina at noon.
Serbia’s Parliament Speaker Vladimir Orlic rejected Kurti’s allegations, saying Kurti was just looking for an excuse to intensify a crackdown on remaining Serbs in Kosovo. Kurti “wants an open escalation and that’s why he wanted to cause some violence,” Tanjug newswire reported, citing Orlic.
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. Both Balkan nations need to mend ties to qualify for membership in the bloc.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, condemned what he called a “hideous” attack, saying in a statement that “all facts about the attack need to be established” and that the perpetrators “must face justice.”
Gunshots and machine gun fire could still be heard in late morning hours in Kosovo, according to Koha newspaper. Vehicles belonging to NATO and EULEX, the European Union rule of law mission in Kosovo, also arrived on the scene.
“These are not armed civilians or a mob, these are professionally trained forces,” Kurti said. “This is not a battle with civilians, but with people equipped with heavy weapons, presenting a threat not only to the constitutional order of Kosovo but to safety of all citizens.”
The incident is the most serious since unrest in May, when scores of NATO peacekeepers and ethnic Serb protesters were injured. The latest escalation comes just after EU-mediated talks collapsed, intensifying concerns for the region that is still dogged by the legacy of the 1990s Balkan wars and raising the risk of another conflict on the EU periphery.
Read more: EU’s Borrell Raps Kosovo and Serbia for Failing to Ease Tensions
Tensions remain high as Kosovo is not ready to give up control over some of its territory and Serbia isn’t ready to recognize Kosovo. Serbia views Kosovo as its own, the 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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