MITROVICA: Police and ethnic Serbs clashed in the flashpoint city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Albin Kurti introduced a new plan to defuse weeks of tensions.

The ethnically divided city has been on edge since Kosovo authorities sought to install Kosovar Albanian mayors in a number of Serb-majority municipalities last month, triggering rioting that injured 30 Nato peacekeepers.

Tuesday’s clashes erupted after Kosovo police arrested a suspected leader of a Serb paramilitary group. The police were later driven back by a crowd of ethnic Serbs throwing stones, according to a journalist at the scene. Air-raid sirens wailed in the city as around 100 Serbs gathered in a tense standoff with police.

Kosovo’s Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said three police officers were “slightly” injured in the melee. Svecla confirmed that police had also arrested an individual suspected of organising the attack on Nato troops last month.

“The Kosovo Police today arrested ... one of the leaders of the criminal group ‘Civil Defence’ and the leader of the criminal gangs that over the years have terrorised our citizens,” Svecla said in a statement posted on social media.

The clashes in the north came as Prime Minister Kurti introduced a five-point plan to ease tensions that included fresh elections in contested municipalities in the north, along with a return to European Union-backed talks with Serbia.

Tensions have been boiling over for weeks in Kosovo’s restive north following Pristina’s decision to install ethnic Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority municipalities. The mayors were elected in polls held in April that were boycotted by ethnic Serb voters.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2023