Nato urges Kosovo to de-escalate tension with Serbia
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Clashes have broken out after ethnic Albanian mayors were installed in ethnic Serb areas in northern Kosovo.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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BRUSSELS - Nato on Saturday urged Kosovo to dial down tensions with Serbia.
The call came a day after Kosovo’s government forcibly accessed municipal buildings to install mayors in ethnic Serb areas in the north of the country.
The resulting clashes on Friday between Kosovan police and protesters opposed to the ethnic Albanian mayors prompted Serbia to put its army on full combat alert and to move units closer to the border.
“We urge the institutions in Kosovo to de-escalate immediately, and call on all parties to resolve the situation through dialogue,” said Ms Oana Lungescu, a spokesman for the transatlantic military alliance, in a Twitter post.
She said KFOR, the 3,800-strong Nato-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, would remain vigilant.
Things were still tense in the northern part of the country, where heavily armed police forces in armoured vehicles were guarding municipality buildings.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti defended police actions in escorting the new mayors the previous day.
“It is the right of those elected in democratic elections to assume office without threats or intimidation. It is also the right of citizens to be served by those elected officials,” Mr Kurti said on Twitter on Saturday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday criticised Mr Kurti’s government for its actions in the north.
Mr Blinken said they “unnecessarily escalated tensions, (were) undermining our efforts to help normalise relations between Kosovo and Serbia and will have consequences for our bilateral relations with Kosovo”.
Almost a decade after the end of a war there, Serbs in Kosovo’s northern region do not accept Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still see Belgrade as their capital.
Ethnic Albanians form more than 90 per cent of the population in Kosovo, with Serbs the majority only in the northern region. REUTERS
