NATO urges Kosovo to de-escalate tension with Serbia

NATO on Saturday urged Kosovo to dial down tensions with Serbia, a day after its 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 Oana Lungescu, a spokeswoman 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 armored 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,” Kurti said on Twitter. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday criticized Kurti’s government for its actions in the north, saying they “unnecessarily escalated tensions, (were) undermining our efforts to help normalize 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 percent of the population in Kosovo, with Serbs only the majority in the northern region.

An estimated 120,000 Serbs live in Kosovo, many in the four northern districts. Serbia’s army remained on the “highest level of alert” near the border with Kosovo, the Balkan country’s presidency said.

On Saturday morning, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic chaired a meeting of the National Security Council which adopted a plan of “security activities ... aimed at strengthening Serbia’s defense capabilities,” the Serbian president’s office said in a statement. The presidency added that “Serbia’s armed forces remain in a state of maximum alert until further notice.”

It is the right of those elected in democratic elections to assume office without threats or intimidation.

Albin Kurti

Kosovo’s prime minister