Tense overnight violence in north Kosovo, Serbs block roads

Kosovo police and the local media have reported explosions, shooting and road blocks over night in the north of the country, where the majority of the population is ethnic Serb

Kosovo police and the local media on December 11 reported explosions, shooting and road blocks overnight in the north of the country, where the population is mostly ethnic Serb, despite the postponement of the December 18 municipal election the Serbs were opposed to. No injuries have been reported.

The European Union rule of law mission, known as EULEX, also reported that “a stun grenade was thrown at an EULEX reconnaissance patrol last night,” causing no injury or material damage.

EULEX, which has some 134 Polish, Italian and Lithuanian police officers deployed in the north, called on “those responsible to refrain from more provocative actions" and said it urged the Kosovo institutions "to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Recent tensions remain high, with Serbia and Kosovo intensifying their exchange of words.

Serbia’s president on Saturday said he would formally request NATO permission to deploy Serbian troops in northern Kosovo, while conceding this was most unlikely to be granted.

Serbian officials claim a U.N. resolution that formally ended the country’s bloody crackdown against majority Kosovo Albanian separatists in 1999 allows for some 1,000 Serb troops to return to Kosovo. NATO bombed Serbia to end the war and push its troops out of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.

The NATO-led peacekeepers who have been working in Kosovo since the war would have to give a green light for Serb troops to go there, something that’s highly unlikely because it would de-facto mean handing over security of Kosovo’s Serb-populated northern regions to Serbian forces, a move that could dramatically increase tensions in the Balkans.