Kosovo PM presents plan to de-escalate tensions in the north
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Kosovo’s prime minister on Tuesday (June 12) presented a plan to defuse tensions in its Serb-majority north that would include fresh local elections and cuts in special police, bowing to pressure from key Western supporters of its independence.
Albin Kurti said that “violent (Serb) groups have been withdrawn from Kosovo territory (and therefore) the presence of Kosovo police troops in three municipal buildings will be downsized.”
“The government of the Republic of Kosovo will coordinate with all the actors and announce early elections in four municipalities in the north,” Kurti told a press conference after meeting ambassadors of the United States, Italy, France, Germany and Britain, known as the Quint group.
Kosovo police said they arrested a Serb identified by Pristina as an organiser of attacks on NATO peacekeepers who deployed in the north last month amid violent Serb unrest over the installation of ethnic Albanian mayors in their area.
During the operation to arrest Milun Milenkovic, three Kosovo Albanian policemen were slightly injured, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said on his Facebook page.
Some 30 peacekeepers and 52 Serbs were injured in the clashes late last month after ethnic Albanian mayors took office following a local election in which turnout was just 3.5% after Serbs, who form a majority in the region, boycotted the vote.
The United States and the European Union have called on Kurti to withdraw the mayors, remove special police used to install them and uphold a 2013 deal for an association of autonomous Serb municipalities in the region
