(ANSA) - BELGRADO, 03 GIU - Also today in northern Kosovo,
where interethnic tensions remain high, local Serbs rallied in
front of the municipalities of Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok
to protest the election of new ethnic Albanian mayors and to
demand the withdrawal of Kosovo police units from the north. The
night passed quietly and without any excesses, with police
deployed inside municipal buildings, while outside there remains
a massive garrison by troops from Kfor, the NATO mission in
Kosovo. After violent clashes on May 29 in Zvecan, municipal
offices have been cordoned off by metal barriers and barbed-wire
fences, on which Serbs have placed numerous Serb flags. In
Leposavic, new mayor Ljuljzim Hetemi, an ethnic Albanian, has
been inside the town hall for days, from which he does not leave
for security reasons. Throughout the Serb-majority north,
schools remain closed, while municipal services are inaccessible
due to popular protests.
The looming demand is for a repeat of the local elections in
the north, which were boycotted on April 23 by the Serbs and
resulted in the election of Albanian mayors. EU and U.S. envoys
Miroslav Lajcak and Gabriel Escobar will arrive in the region
Monday in an effort to defuse what is feared could be possible
new conflict in the Balkans of unpredictable consequences.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti reiterated that he is not
opposed to holding new local elections in northern Kosovo, but
that law and the rule of law must be restored first, with an end
to Serb protests. In an interview with Nbc News, taken up in
part by the media in Belgrade, Kurti said that "next week the
special envoys of the European Union and the United States
Lajcak and Escobar will arrive in Kosovo and we will talk about
the details. I believe in new elections, but for that we need
rule of law and a free and fair campaign for free and fair
elections." Kurti admitted that the new mayors who were elected
on April 23 have a low degree of legitimacy due to low voter
turnout, but added that they are "the only legal and legitimate
mayors." The extremists and criminals responsible for the
violence in the north, Kurti said, must answer before the
courts, after which conditions will be created for a new
campaign and free and democratic elections. At the same time,
the premier denied that Kosovar police used force in confronting
Serb demonstrators in the north. For Kurti, it is not the
Serbian people that should be brought into the picture, but some
well-orchestrated violent masses aimed at destabilizing Kosovo.
(ANSA).
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Kosovo: Serb protests continue in north, tension remains
Kurti reiterates, for new vote, legality must be restored