The US urged Serbia and Kosovo to immediately de-escalate tensions in northern Kosovo after clashes injured dozens of peacekeepers and protesters, intensifying the international call for calm.
(Bloomberg) — The US urged Serbia and Kosovo to immediately de-escalate tensions in northern Kosovo after clashes injured dozens of peacekeepers and protesters, intensifying the international call for calm.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s government for “unnecessarily” inflaming ties with the minority Serb community and urged newly elected, ethnic-Albanian mayors to avoid working in predominantly Serb towns where violence erupted this week. Kosovo police should also withdraw, he said in a statement late Tuesday.
Serbia should de-escalate the status of its troops, which President Aleksandar Vucic put on high alert last week, Blinken said. Vucic should also urge Serbs in Kosovo to “halt challenges to KFOR and refrain from further violence,” he added, in reference to the NATO peacekeeping force.
The statement underscored growing impatience in Washington, which has backed a European Union-brokered negotiation process to resolve a standoff that is blocking both Serbia and Kosovo from making progress toward EU membership.
That process was essentially hamstrung last week when, following an election that Serbs living in northern Kosovo declared invalid, the ethnic-Albanian mayors tried to access their offices under police escort. The subsequent clash with protesters triggered the deployment of KFOR, and 30 NATO soldiers and dozens of Serbs were injured in new violence on Monday.
The US has decided to exclude Kosovo from the large military exercise Defender Europe 2023. The unusually sharp rebuke is a blow to Kosovo, which depends on the US for financial aid and security, as well as backing in its push for further international recognition of its independence.
That didn’t sit well with Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti, who described Blinken’s rebuke as “unfair, wrong, hurtful and naïve” in a social media post on Wednesday.
While the most substantive issue is Serbia’s refusal to recognize the independence of Kosovo, which formalized its break from Belgrade in 2008, the enmity between the two communities dates back to the war in Kosovo a generation ago.
Russia and China have both backed Serbia’s position, adding a geopolitical dimension to the dispute, and helping perpetuate the divisions that haunt the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
The standoff has condemned the northern part of Kosovo, mainly populated by Serbs, to economic limbo, paralyzed by the frosty relations between Pristina and Belgrade while the ethnic-Albanian majority in the rest of the country has enjoyed relative prosperity.
The flareup comes at a critical moment for the western allies who have backed the Kosovo state since its creation. Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion is delicately poised and the US and the EU are trying to push back against Kremlin attempts to win support in countries like China, India and Brazil and to portray NATO as the aggressor.
That means western diplomats have limited bandwidth to focus on another flareup on the European continent, even as they worry that getting drawn into a new crisis could offer fuel to the Kremlin’s propaganda operation.
The immediate trigger for the protests was the municipal election held in April which local Serbs boycotted, with the encouragement of Serbian President Vucic. Kurti pressed ahead with the vote, despite warnings from the US and the EU that it would exacerbate tensions.
US ambassador to Kosovo, Jeffrey Hovenier put the blame on Kurti on Tuesday, reiterating recent US criticism of Kurti’s policies and urged him to accept advice from US as its top ally.
By putting his army on high alert and moving some units nearer to the border on Friday, Vucic’s actions are fueling concerns about just how far the situation in northern Kosovo could deteriorate. Belgrade was forced by NATO to withdraw its forces from Kosovo in 1999.
–With assistance from Jan Bratanic.
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