NATO troops on guard in Kosovo for third day amid protests
LEPOSAVIC, Kosovo — NATO peacekeepers guarded town halls in ethnically divided northern Kosovo for a third day on Wednesday, as unrest prompted the alliance to send additional troops to the area and NATO and the West slammed Kosovo for not having done enough to stave off violence.
Following clashes on Monday in Zvecan, a northern town, during which 30 NATO troops and 52 ethnic Serbian protesters were hurt, NATO said it would send 700 more troops to Kosovo to boost its 4,000-strong mission. It was not clear when the soldiers would arrive.
Regional unrest has intensified following April elections that the ethnic Serbs boycotted, narrowing the turnout to 3.5% and leaving victory in four Serb-majority Kosovan mayoralties to ethnic Albanian candidates.
Those Kosovan Albanian mayors were then installed last week, a decision that spurred rebuke of Pristina by the U.S. and its allies on Friday for stoking discord with neighbouring Serbia.
Kosovo media reported on Wednesday that protesters outside a town hall in Zvecan, who were separated from Polish NATO troops by a razor-wire barrier, had broken windows on a police car and two cars belonging to Kosovan Albanian media outlets.
The demonstrators had damaged two cars a day earlier as well, but protests remained largely peaceful on Wednesday.
MAYOR STRANDED
NATO soldiers also stood guard outside a municipal hall in Leposavic in northern Kosovo, where its ethnic Albanian mayor remained holed up after entering it amid Serb demonstrations on Monday. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“While they (the mayors) may have been legally elected, we do not consider their election legitimate,” Dragan, an ethnic Serb who lives in Leposavic, told Reuters on Wednesday.
The United States, NATO and allies have rebuked Kosovo for escalating tensions with Serbia, saying that forcefully installing the mayors in ethnic-serb areas undermined efforts to improve troubled bilateral relations.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the unrest “has increased sharply since ethnic Albanian mayors took office.”