More peacekeepers to be sent to Kosovo to calm Serb unrest

• Troops and protesters face off over Albanian mayors

Nato peacekeepers stood behind a razor-wire barrier that stopped advancing protesters at a municipal hall in ethnically divided northern Kosovo, where days of unrest prompted Nato to send more troops to stave off violence.

In clashes on Monday in Zvecan, another northern town, 30 Nato troops and 52 ethnic Serbian protesters were hurt. Nato said it will send 700 more troops to Kosovo to boost its 4,000-strong mission.

It is not clear when the soldiers would arrive.

Polish soldiers of Nato stood guard at the town hall in Zvecan on Wednesday, as demonstrators at the fence unfurled a large Serbian flag to applause and whistles.

Regional unrest intensified after April elections, which the ethnic Serbs boycotted, narrowing the turnout to 3.5% and leaving victory in four Serbmajority Kosovan councils to ethnic Albanian candidates. Those ethnic Albanian mayors were installed last week, a decision that spurred rebuke of Pristina by the US and its allies on Friday.

The ethnic Albanian mayor of Leposavic, another northern Kosovo town, remained in the municipal building on Wednesday after entering it amid Serb protests on Monday. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

“While they may have been legally elected, we do not consider their election legitimate,” said Dragan, an ethnic Serb who lives in Leposavic.

“We’re asking what the international community is asking: for them to be removed from here peacefully,” he said.

REBUKE

The US and allies have rebuked Kosovo for stoking tension with Serbia, saying the use of force to install mayors in ethnic Serb areas of Kosovo undermines efforts to improve troubled bilateral relations.

That view was echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who said on Wednesday the unrest “has increased sharply since ethnic Albanian mayors took office”.

Speaking at a briefing in Bratislava, Macron said he hopes to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia later this week.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti accused Belgrade on Wednesday of being behind protests in the north to destabilise the country.

Kosovo Olympic authorities asked the International Olympic Committee to open disciplinary proceedings against Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic, accusing the Serb of stirring political tension with remarks he made at the French Open. Djokovic wrote “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia” on a camera lens on Monday, the day Nato troops and Serbians were hurt in clashes in Zvecan, where his father grew up.

Kosovo tennis federation chief Jeton Hadergjonaj said that despite a general message against violence, Djokovic’s remark on Kosovo being the “heart of Serbia” could ramp up tension between Serbia and Kosovo.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic placed his army on combat alert and ordered units to move closer to the border.

INDEPENDENCE

Northern Kosovo’s majority Serbs have never accepted Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and consider Belgrade their capital more than two decades after the Kosovo Albanian uprising against repressive Serbian rule.

Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90% of the population in Kosovo as a whole, but northern Serbs have long demanded the implementation of an EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.

Peacekeeping troops were deployed in Kosovo in 1999 after Nato bombing drove Serbia’s police and army out of its former province.