PRISTINA, Kosovo, 30 May: The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, on Tuesday raised the number of its troops injured in fierce clashes with ethnic Serbs to 30.
\nThe Serbs had tried to take over the offices of one of the municipalities in northern Kosovo where ethnic Albanian mayors took up their posts last week.
\nA statement said that 11 Italian soldiers and 19 Hungarian ones \u201csustained multiple injuries, including fractures and burns from improvized explosive incendiary devices.\u201d It added that three Hungarian soldiers were \u201cwounded by the use of firearms,\u201d but their injuries are not life-threatening.
\nThe Serbs clashed with NATO troops in the municipality of Zvecan, 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the capital, Pristina.
\n\u201cBoth parties need to take full responsibility for what happened and prevent any further escalation, rather than hide behind false narratives,\u201d said KFOR commander Maj.-Gen. Angelo Michele Ristuccia.
\nEthnic Serbs plan to gather again on Tuesday.
\nSerbian President Aleksandar Vucic spent the night with his troops on the border with Kosovo. They were placed on the highest state of alert on his orders last week. Vucic said 52 Serbs were injured in the clashes, three seriously.
\nKosovo police said four people were detained.
\nThe violence was the latest incident as tensions soared over the past weekend when ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo tried to block recently elected ethnic Albanian officials from entering municipal buildings. Kosovo police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and let the new officials into the offices. Serbia put the country\u2019s military on high alert and sent more troops to the border with Kosovo.
\nKosovo and Serbia have been foes for decades, with Belgrade refusing to recognize Kosovo\u2019s 2008 sovereignty.
\nThe United States and the European Union have stepped up efforts to help solve the Kosovo-Serbia dispute, fearing further instability in Europe as Russia\u2019s war rages in Ukraine. The EU has made it clear to both Serbia and Kosovo that they must normalize relations if they\u2019re to make any progress toward joining the bloc.
\nWestern ambassadors of the so-called Quint \u2014 France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States \u2014 met in Pristina with Prime Minister Albin Kurti, asking him to take steps to de-escalate and lower tensions, while strongly denouncing the Serbs\u2019 violence against KFOR troops and journalists.
\n\u201cUltra-nationalistic Serb graffiti on NATO vehicles is a dark reminder in Kosovo We stand for peace and security,\u201d said Kurti after the meeting.
\nQuint ambassadors are to meet with Vucic, and he is also meeting with Russian and Chinese ambassadors to show he has support for his policies.
\nEthnic Serbs in Zvecan, Leposavic, Zubin Potok and Mitrovica, four municipalities in the north, held elections last month that were largely boycotted by ethnic Serbs. Only ethnic Albanian or other smaller minority representatives were elected to the mayoral posts and assemblies.
\nThe conflict in Kosovo erupted in 1998 when separatist ethnic Albanians rebelled against Serbia\u2019s rule, and Serbia responded with a brutal crackdown. About 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, died. NATO\u2019s military intervention in 1999 eventually forced Serbia to pull out of the territory. Washington and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo as an independent state, but Serbia, Russia and China haven\u2019t. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PRISTINA, Kosovo, 30 May: The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, on Tuesday raised the number of its troops injured in fierce clashes with ethnic Serbs to 30. The Serbs had tried to take over the offices of one of the municipalities in northern Kosovo where ethnic Albanian mayors took up their posts last week. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-217321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}