2023-09-24 08:43:04
PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — One Kosovo police officer was killed and another wounded in an attack that the country’s prime minister described as backed by neighboring Serbia, potentially raising tensions at a delicate moment in EU-sponsored talks. European Union to normalize relations between the two old war enemies.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti said “masked professionals equipped with heavy weapons” opened fire on a police patrol in the town of Banjska, Leposavic, 55 kilometers (35 miles) north of the capital, Pristina, at 3 p.m. early morning (01:00 GMT). One officer died and another suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Two trucks without license plates blocked a bridge at the entrance to the town. Three police units came to unblock it, but were attacked from various points with different weapons, hand grenades and bombs.
The police managed to repel the attack and take two wounded officers to hospital in Mitrovica, to the south.
One of them was declared dead upon arrival, according to doctors.
Most of the country’s ethnic Serb minority lives in four municipalities in the area around Mitrovica in northern Kosovo.
“Organized crime, which is supported politically, financially and logistically from Belgrade, is attacking our state,” Kurti wrote on his Facebook page.
Kurti added that shots continued to be fired at the police with different weapons.
“The government of the Republic of Kosovo and its state institutions are ready and coordinated to respond to crime and criminals, terrorism and terrorists,” he stated.
Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, who was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, denounced the assassination and “attacks once morest the sovereignty of the Republic of Kosovo.”
“These attacks attest once once more to the destabilizing power of criminal gangs organized from Serbia, which for a long time (…) have destabilized Kosovo and the region,” he stated.
An EU-facilitated meeting this month in Brussels between Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic ended acrimoniously.
The EU presented a 10-point plan in February to end months of political crises. Kurti and Vucic gave their approval then, but with some reservations that have not yet been resolved.
The EU warned the two countries that the commitments made in February by Serbia and Kosovo “are binding on them and play a role in the parties’ European path,” referring to their possibilities of joining the bloc of 27 countries.
Tensions in northern Kosovo left 93 peacekeepers injured last May.
Serbia and Kosovo, its former province, have been at odds for decades. Its war between 1998 and 1999 left more than 10,000 dead, mostly Kosovar Albanians. Kosovo declared independence unilaterally in 2008, but Belgrade has refused to recognize it.
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Semini reported from Tirana, Albania.
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