Kosovo Serbs remain defiant on NATO orders to clear roadblocks

Oct 18, 2011, 8:06 GMT

Belgrade - Kosovo Serbs continued to defy orders from a NATO peacekeeping mission (KFOR)Tuesday, refusing to remove roadblocks in their enclave, Serbian media reported.

The Serbs erected barricades across key roads in July, trying to prevent the Kosovo government from taking control over the two border crossings from the enclave to Serbia proper.

Violence erupted twice over the barricades since then. A Kosovo policeman was killed in July and several KFOR soldiers were injured in September.

The KFOR commander, Erhard Drews, on Saturday ordered the Serbs to dismantle the roadblocks and allow free passage for his troops by Monday, but then pushed the deadline by another 24 hours.

Serbian Kosovo Minister Goran Bogdanovic urged KFOR to again postpone the deadline and give local Serb more time to find a solution and warned that a forcible removal of roadblocks would raise tensions.

While leaders in the northern Serb enclave - the largest of the few areas in Kosovo where Serbs outnumber Albanians - refused to order the obstacles cleared from the roads, they also urged the population to step back in case KFOR moves to dismantle them.

Kosovo, with Albanians making up 90 per cent of the 2 million inhabitants, declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and was recognized by the United States, 22 out of the 27 European Union nations and most countries in the region.

Serbia, however, still claims Kosovo as its soil and supports the resistance of its compatriots in the north to governance from Pristina.

Alongside KFOR, an EU law-enforcing mission (EULEX) is also deployed in the former province. A small UN presence, a fraction of what was deployed there after the 1999 Kosovo war, also remains in the field, its influence limited.

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