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NATO soldiers wounded in Kosovo clash

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:12 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

* Minority Serbs manning barricades in north

* Impasse threatening Serbia's EU progress

* Serbs reject Kosovo independence

By Fatos Bytyci

PRISTINA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Twenty-one NATO soldiers were wounded overnight, one seriously, when Serbs in Kosovo fought with peacekeepers trying to remove barricades erected against the country's ethnic Albanian authorities, the alliance said on Thursday.

It was the latest spasm of violence in a months-long standoff in the mainly Serb north of Kosovo that Western diplomats say could cost Serbia official candidate status for membership of the European Union when the bloc meets next month.

Kosovo, where 90 percent of the 1.7 million people are ethnic Albanians, declared independence from Serbia in 2008. But Serbs in a small slice of the north bordering Serbia reject the secession, and the West has struggled to tackle the country's de facto ethnic partition.

Clashes broke out around midnight when soldiers of NATO's 6,250-strong Kosovo Force (KFOR) tried to remove one of more than a dozen roadblocks set up by Serbs after Kosovo's government tried to send border police to the north in July.

"The demonstrators used force including the throwing of stones and pushing back KFOR troops by attacking them with trucks loaded with gravel," KFOR said in a statement.

One soldier was seriously wounded when he was hit by a truck. The statement said peacekeepers responded with tear gas, batons and warning shots fired into the air. A number of Serbs were treated for the effects of tear gas, local Serb officials said.

Serbia is under pressure to have the barricades removed and make progress in ties with Kosovo if the European Union is to grant it candidate status for future membership on Dec. 9.

The EU deployed a police and justice mission to Kosovo after its declaration of independence -- recognised by 22 of the EU's 27 members -- but the mission is unable to operate freely in the north due to Serb resistance.

It is unclear precisely how much control Serbia's ruling pro-Western coalition has over Serb leaders in northern Kosovo, a region propped up by the Serbian state but politically more closely aligned with the opposition.

Kosovo is steeped in history and myth for many Serbs, and analysts say the government may be reluctant to compromise on the north for fear of being punished in a parliamentary election due early next year.

Serbia lost control over Kosovo in 1999, when NATO bombed for 78 days to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians in a two-year Serb counter-insurgency war under then-strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

More than 80 countries have recognised the new country, the last to emerge from the remains of old federal Yugoslavia. (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Mark Heinrich)