The United States condemns violence against NATO in Kosovo and calls for de-escalation

May 31. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The Government of the United States has condemned this Tuesday the attacks suffered by members of the NATO mission in Kosovo (KFOR) and the media in the former Serbian province and has asked to reduce the tension.

US State Department Secretary Antony Blinken has called on both Kosovo and Serbia to “immediately” commit to participating in EU-facilitated talks to normalize relations.

Blinken has indicated that the decision of the Government of Kosovo “to force access to municipal buildings intensified tensions in an abrupt and unnecessary way”, in reference to the protests of the Kosovar authorities against Kosovar Albanian mayors who were trying to assume their mandate after the elections in April intended to fill the void left by Kosovar Serb mayors who decided to resign their posts in protest.

“Prime Minister (of Kosovo, Albin) Kurti and his government must ensure that elected mayors carry out their transitional functions from alternative locations outside municipal buildings, and withdraw police forces from the immediate vicinity,” he requested.

Regarding Serbia, the Secretary of State has indicated that the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, and his government “should lower the security level of the Serbian Armed Forces and urge the Kosovar Serbs to stop challenging KFOR and refrain from to commit more violent acts.

At least 30 KFOR members were injured in clashes Monday between peacekeepers and Kosovar Serb protesters gathered in Zvecan, a Serb-majority municipality in northern Kosovo, to protest against the town’s new mayor.

Kosovo has been maintained since the 1990s as an open wound in the heart of the Balkans; a territory of less than 11,000 square kilometers that, 15 years after its unilateral independence from Serbia, continues to register recurring tensions and violence that are mainly concentrated in its northern zone, where the Serb community is the majority.

It has been claimed since February 2008 as an independent state, a position endorsed by around a hundred countries but which Serbia still does not recognize to this day. Neither are powers such as Russia or China, nor five EU countries –among them Spain– that view with suspicion that a territory can embark on the path of secession without having the approval of its theoretical central government.