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Albin Kurti

5 months ago

Kosovo PM Kurti Urges NATO Aid to Fill Northern Security Void

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Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti is calling for greater cooperation with NATO in order to better secure his country's Serbian-dominated northern territories.

Nearly a week after deadly clashes in Kosovo triggered one of the gravest escalations in the former breakaway province in years, the opportunity for reconciliation between ethnic Albanians and Serbs seemed as distant as ever.

The killing of a Kosovo police officer and an ensuing gun battle at a monastery brought years of distrust and bitterness to the surface - as a war of words between Serbia and Pristina's governments, competing days of mourning, and calls for sanctions marred already fractious relations.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti is calling for greater cooperation with NATO in order to better secure his country's Serbian-dominated northern territories.

Kurti said he plans to change an earlier commitment that the Kosovo Security Forces refrain from entering the area.

"This vacuum that is there must be filled, and for this, we are increasing the cooperation with our international allies, and those KFOR (NATO Kosovo peacekeeping) troops," Kurti said on Saturday.

"Serbia must be punished internationally because every time it has not been punished, it has repeated the crimes."

US warning

The United States on Friday warned of "a large Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo" and called on "Serbia to withdraw those forces from the border".

On Saturday, in the southern Serbian town of Raska near the border with Kosovo, no particular movement or increased presence of Serbian armed forces was visible, according to an AFP journalist.

Last Sunday, three Serb gunmen were killed in an hours-long shootout with Kosovo police, after they ambushed a patrol and later barricaded themselves at an Orthodox monastery near the northern border with Serbia.

In the wake of the clashes, Kosovo police have rounded up suspects, remanded three alleged gunmen in custody, and seized an arsenal of weapons that authorities said could have armed hundreds.

On Friday morning, Kosovo police fanned out again across the north as they conducted an operation that saw the special units raid properties linked to the suspected mastermind of the attack on the police.

The move triggered immediate condemnation from Belgrade, with Serbia's Office for Kosovo calling the operation a "brutal and excessive demonstration of force" with special police units "armed to the teeth".

NATO meanwhile said it was ready to increase its peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

'A normal life'

In the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica in the north, Serb residents said they feared an increased presence of Kosovo police and ensuing crackdowns in the already restive community.

"I'm afraid of repression, which we've had before.