Border Crossing Burning

"Landep News"

Border Crossing Burning

Kosovo Serbs set in fire on Thursday a border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo, using petrol bombs, two days after a Kosovo policeman was shot in the head and another was wounded as they were trying to take control of two border crossings in the north of the self-proclaimed state of Kosovo, where the Serbian minority resides.

This action shows that the tension between Serbian and Albanian Kosovars has already escalated to a simmering point, in spite of the appeal to calm made by the European Union leaders earlier in the week.

The incident comes at a time when the Kosovo police drew its troops out of the region after it had initially taken a first border crossing, which it later abandoned.

The Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Tachi dismissed the accusation made by EU leaders according to whom he had acted without consulting them first.

Tachi, who is under an international arrest warrant issued by Serbia for the accusation of human organ trafficking, said on Tuesday that Kosovo could no longer tolerate that the northern part of the country be exempted from taxation and that the sovereignty of the republic be ignored in that region.

Tachi said that the action he ordered was consistent with the legislation of the European Union and with the legislation of the country he rules.

Protest in Kosovo

The order of the government to enforce the Kosovo presence in the zone of Kosovska Mitrovica, where the Serb minoritary lives, took both the EU and NATO by surprise raising their fears that the 1.7 million nation would sink into chaos and violence again.

Thaci accused Belgrade of having ordered and coordinated the action of the Serbian Kosovars, while the President of Serbia Boris Tadic called for calm and said extremists both Serb and Albanian were responsible for the escalation of violence.

Tadic also said that this action is going to create obstacles in the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, which is vital for Serbia’s admission to the European Union.

Serbia requested an urgent session of the United Nations Security Council, which is about to be briefed by the peacekeepers in the region. Diplomats will gather to see if there is cause to propose the international body a larger reunion on the matter. The US and EU diplomats urged Boris Tadic and Hashim Thaci to keep situation under control in Kosovo.

NATO sent more troops in the northern region in order to make sure ethnic conflicts do not escalate. There are 5,000 UN peacekeepers and more than 3,000 EU activists.

The president of Serbia said that Serbian hooligans do not help the national cause of their country, and by these acts they join the Albanian terrorists that want an end to peace in Kosovo.

Serbian community in the northern Kosovo depends on economic support from Serbia since Kosovo proclaimed independence, an unilateral act which was not recognized neither by Serbia nor by the Serbs living in Kosovo.

Thank's for link:

Tweet