NATO is deploying 700 additional troops to northern Kosovo after 30 of its peacekeepers were injured in clashes with ethnic Serb protesters amid a long-simmering dispute.
“We have decided to deploy 700 more troops from the operational reserve force for Western Balkans,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Oslo, after talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store on Tuesday.
He said that NATO would also “put an additional battalion of reserve forces on high readiness so they can also be deployed if needed”.
A battalion typically ranges from 300 to about 1,000 troops. The NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR, currently consists of almost 3,800 troops.
KFOR said the 30 hurt peacekeepers from Hungary and Italy had several injuries, including “fractures and burns from improvised explosive incendiary devices”.
The latest round of tensions increased during the past weekend, after ethnic Albanian officials elected in votes overwhelmingly boycotted by Serbs entered municipal buildings. When Serbian protesters tried to block them, Kosovo police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.
In response, Serbia put the country’s military on the highest state of alert and sent more troops to the border with Kosovo. The Serbs protested again on Monday, insisting both ethnic Albanian mayors and Kosovo police must leave northern Kosovo.
On Tuesday, the situation in the northern Kosovo town of Zvecan remained tense with ethnic Serbs gathered outside the town hall that a crowd had tried to storm on Monday. Kosovo police had repelled them with tear gas, before the NATO-led peacekeepers intervened.
The soldiers at first tried to separate protesters from the police, but later tried to disperse the crowd using shields and batons. Several protesters responded by hurling rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails.
Many Serbs are demanding the withdrawal of Kosovo police forces, as well as the ethnic Albanian mayors they do not consider their true representatives.
I think it was a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing. If they voted in the election, they are recognizing Kosovo's government as legitimate (which they don't want to do),...
I think it was a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing. If they voted in the election, they are recognizing Kosovo's government as legitimate (which they don't want to do), and by refusing to vote, they are left with a very unpopular mayor for their region.
I'm not sure what the end result will be and I'm not sure of a good solution for the people and area. I spent about a year over there in 2011-2012 deployed with KFOR and learned a lot about the region, but there is still so much more there.
So they refused to vote, and then complained that the people elected weren't representing them? Yes, that sounds right.
I think it was a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing. If they voted in the election, they are recognizing Kosovo's government as legitimate (which they don't want to do), and by refusing to vote, they are left with a very unpopular mayor for their region.
I'm not sure what the end result will be and I'm not sure of a good solution for the people and area. I spent about a year over there in 2011-2012 deployed with KFOR and learned a lot about the region, but there is still so much more there.