LEPOSAVIC, Kosovo, May 31 (Portal) – NATO peacekeepers guarded town halls in Kosovo’s ethnically polarized north for a third day on Wednesday, while Serbia’s defense minister inspected troops stationed near the border with its former province, following violent unrest this week were.
The unrest prompted NATO to send additional troops to the area, and the alliance and the West criticized Kosovo for not doing enough to prevent violence that left 30 NATO troops and 52 ethnic Serb protesters injured on Monday became.
NATO said it would send 700 more troops to bolster its 4,000-strong mission in Kosovo, where Serbs are upset that a 2013 deal to create a federation of autonomous communities, where they are the majority, in the north form, was never implemented.
Unrest in the region has intensified since April’s elections, which the Serbs boycotted in northern Kosovo, so victory in four Serb-majority mayorships belonged to candidates from Kosovo’s 90% Albanian majority.
After being deployed last week despite a 3.5% turnout, the US, the staunchest supporter of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia in 2008, decided to cancel Pristina’s participation in a NATO military exercise.
US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill said on Wednesday there could be further steps but declined to elaborate.
“We want more progress in Kosovo, we want the establishment of the Association of Serbian Municipalities, we want the normalization of the (promised) commitments of both countries, including Serbia,” Hill told reporters in Belgrade.
Kosovo media reported on Wednesday that protesters outside a town hall in Zvecan, separated by a barbed wire barrier from Polish NATO troops, smashed the windows of a police car and two cars belonging to Kosovar Albanian media outlets.
In the northern crisis areas, there was largely calm on Wednesday.
[1/6] Soldiers from the U.S. Kosovo Force (KFOR) under NATO stand guard near a municipal office in Leposavic, Kosovo May 31, 2023. Portal/Fatos Bytyci
NATO soldiers also stood guard outside a community center in Leposavic where the Albanian mayor was holed up after entering it amid Serb protests on Monday.
“Although (these mayors) may have been legitimately elected, we do not consider their election legitimate,” Dragan, an ethnic Serb living in Leposavic who declined to give his last name, said on Wednesday.
SERBIAN FORCES AT THE BORDER
Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic visited a military base in Raska near the border with Kosovo and inspected soldiers with tanks behind them after President Aleksandar Vucic put the country’s army on full combat readiness.
Vucevic said he wants peace and stability “but without jeopardizing our ability to defend the sovereignty of the Republic of Serbia and all of its citizens” – also alluding to Kosovo Serbs who do not recognize Kosovo’s statehood.
The United States, NATO and their allies have accused the Kosovar government of stoking tensions with Serbia, saying the forcible installation of mayors in ethnic Serb areas has undermined efforts to bring about lasting peace in the region.
Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti accused Belgrade of staging protests in the north to destabilize Kosovo, which secured its statehood a decade after a guerrilla uprising against repressive Serbian rule.
Separately, the Kosovo Olympic authorities have asked the International Olympic Committee to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic, accusing him of fueling political tensions with statements made at the French Open.
Djokovic wrote on a camera lens on Monday, the day NATO troops and Serbs were injured in clashes in Zvecan, where his father grew up: “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia”.
reporting by Fatos Bytici, Ivana Sekularac and Daria Sito-Sucic; Edited by Bernadette Baum and Mark Heinrich
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