Kosovo demanded on Saturday that Serbia take out its troops from their shared border, declaring its readiness to defend its territorial integrity.
On Sunday, 30 heavily armed Serbs attacked the Kosovo village of Banjska and surrounded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery, provoking a fierce gun battle with Kosovo police. There were four fatalities: three attackers and one officer.
After a guerrilla uprising and a 1999 NATO intervention, ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. The gunbattle has renewed international concern over stability in the country.
The Kosovo government issued the following statement: “We demand that Serbia immediately withdraw all troops from the Kosovo border.” “The deployment of Serbian troops along the border with Kosovo is the next step in Serbia’s threat to our nation’s territorial integrity.”
President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia told the Financial Times that an escalation of the conflict could damage Belgrade’s aspirations to join the European Union, so they have no plans to order his forces to cross the border into Kosovo.
The United States is keeping a close eye on a destabilizing Serbian military deployment along the Kosovo border, the White House said on Friday.
NATO announced on Friday that it had “authorized additional forces to address the current situation” in Kosovo, where it still maintains 4,500 troops.
