The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, on Tuesday raised to 30 the number of soldiers injured in violent clashes with ethnic Serb protesters in the north of the country. The Serbs tried to seize the offices of several municipalities, where ethnic Albanian mayors have taken office since last week after Serb-boycotted elections.
In a statement, KFOR said 11 Italian and 19 Hungarian soldiers "suffered multiple injuries, including fractures and burns from improvised explosive incendiary devices" and added that three Hungarian soldiers were "wounded by the use of firearms", but their injuries do not endanger their lives, in the municipality of Zvecan, 45 kilometers north of the capital, Pristina.
Ethnic Serbs plan to demonstrate again this Tuesday. Several protesters gathered in front of the Zvecan municipal offices on Tuesday morning, while soldiers from the United States, Italy and Poland stood by in riot gear and put up a metal barrier around the town hall.
Three armored vehicles belonging to the Kosovo police, made up of ethnic Albanians, whose presence still draws the ire of protesters, were parked in front of the town hall.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated that 52 Serbs had been injured. In another Serb-majority city, Leposavic, an ethnic Albanian mayor was prevented from leaving his office for more than 24 hours because of protesters outside, media reported. Kosovo police said five people were detained.
The Serbian president spent the night with his troops on the border with Kosovo and has placed the army on the highest level of combat alert, something that has been commonplace in recent years.
Tensions escalated last weekend when Serbs in northern Kosovo tried to block newly elected ethnic Albanian officials from entering municipal buildings. Kosovo police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and allow the new officials to enter the offices.
Kosovo and Serbia have been enemies for decades, and Belgrade has refused to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty since it declared its independence unilaterally in 2008. The United States and the European Union have stepped up their efforts to help resolve the dispute between Kosovo and Serbia, fearing further instability in Europe as Russia's war continues in Ukraine.
The EU has made it clear to both Serbia and Kosovo that they must normalize relations if they are to make any progress towards joining the bloc. Western ambassadors from the so-called Quint group (consisting of France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States) met in Pristina with Prime Minister Albin Kurti, asking him to take measures to reduce tensions, while strongly denouncing the violence of the Serbs against KFOR troops and journalists.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told RAI public radio that he had spoken with Vucic and Kurti on Monday night. "I invited everyone to calm down (...) to abandon violence, and I hope they listened to me, they both showed great willingness, we'll see."
For its part, the French Foreign Ministry declared on Tuesday that it was vital to immediately restore stability in northern Kosovo, given its importance to European security. "It is more essential than ever that Pristina and Belgrade show responsibility by returning to the negotiating table with an attitude of commitment in the service of peace and prosperity of the Serbian and Kosovar citizens," he declared in a statement calling on both parties, in particular the Government of Kosovo, to immediately take the necessary steps to reduce tensions.
Ethnic Serbs in Zvecan, Leposavic, Zubin Potok and North Mitrovica, four municipalities in the north where the vast majority of Kosovo's Serb population resides, refused to run in local elections in April and ethnic Albanian candidates won the municipalities with a participation of 3.5%. Only representatives of ethnic Albanians or other smaller minorities were elected to the mayoral and councilor posts.
The Kosovar authorities have blamed Vucic for destabilizing Kosovo. Vucic blamed the Kosovar authorities for causing trouble by insisting on installing new mayors. "In a democracy there is no place for fascist violence," Kurti said on Twitter late on Monday. Vucic is scheduled to meet in Belgrade with the ambassadors of the Quint group and later with the ambassadors of Russia and China in Serbia.
The ethnic Serbs, the majority in northern Kosovo, have never accepted the Kosovar declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 and continue to consider Belgrade as their capital. Albanians make up more than 90% of the population of Kosovo as a whole, but northern Serbs have long demanded the implementation of the agreement reached in 2013 with the mediation of the EU for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their zone. Of Kosovo's 1.8 million people, 120,000 are ethnic Serbs, three-quarters of whom live in the north.
The conflict in Kosovo erupted in 1998 when ethnic Albanians rebelled against the Serbian government, and Serbia responded with brutal repression. Some 13,000 people died, mostly ethnic Albanians. NATO military intervention in 1999 finally forced Serbia to withdraw from the territory. Washington and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo as an independent state, but Serbia, Russia and China have not. Neither does Spain.
