EU, US demand end to violence in Kosovo, return to negotiations

BRUSSELS – European and US diplomats have demanded an immediate end to

scattered attacks and road blockades in Kosovo

as tension with ethnic Serbs threatens to boil over into the worst violence in at least two decades. 

Tensions escalated last week following the arrest of a former Serb police officer on terrorism charges, with members of the restive community in the country’s north taking to the streets to demand his release. 

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Saturday raised the prospect of sending troops into Kosovo to protect the Serb minority.

“They have to overcome this tendency to fighting in the street, to creating blockades,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels on Monday. The US missions in Belgrade and Pristina called in a joint statement to “exercise maximum restraint, to take immediate action to achieve a de-escalation”. 

EU officials brokered a deal between Serbia and Kosovo last month in a dispute over requiring Kosovo’s Serbs to submit to national licence plates and personal documents.

But

friction between the Serb minority and ethnic Albanian majority has escalated,

complicating attempts to normalise ties.

Mr Borrell also condemned Serb attacks on police with stun grenades. The US said the arrest of the police officer is being used “as a justification for illegal roadblocks as well as threats and intimidation against the Kosovan authorities”. 

Mr Vucic has consistently vowed to protect Serbs in Kosovo, who became an ethnic minority when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Serbia doesn’t acknowledge Kosovo’s sovereignty and is working to prevent Kosovo from winning diplomatic recognition from other nations and from joining international bodies such as the United Nations. BLOOMBERG