Tirana urges Kosovo Albanian calm as Belgrade protests

TIRANA, Jan 5, 2009 (AFP) – Tirana appealed Monday to ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to remain calm after a weekend of violence in a flashpoint northern town that has drawn protests from Serbia’s president.
In a statement, the Albanian foreign ministry urged Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority to remain “calm and avoid provocations that could threaten security” in the breakaway Serbian province.
The ministry was “attentively following the situation in northern Kosovo and its authorities are in permanent contact with their counterparts in Kosovo,” said the statement.
An uneasy calm has returned to the streets of Kosovska Mitrovica after NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) reinforcements arrived in the divided town following two explosions in its mainly Serb-populated northern half.
Seven firefighters were injured in the second blast as they were trying to put out a blaze at an Albanian-owned building apparently started by a group of ethnic Serbs angered by the first explosion.
Albania said it was confident that KFOR, Kosovo’s police force and the European Union’s mission in Kosovo (EULEX) were “ready and capable of responding to any threat to Kosovo security.”
In Belgrade, President Boris Tadic sent a “strong” protest to UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and the European Union, criticizing the failure of their representatives to “prevent attacks on Serbs,” his office said Monday.
“Such incidents can lead to a deterioration of the security situation in Kosovo,” the statement quoted the Serbian leader as saying.
“I demand from the international community’s representatives to step up security which they are in charge of and to prevent attacks on Kosovo Serbs,” he added.
Mitrovica remains rife with tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians nearly a year after Kosovo — under the UN umbrella since a 1999 NATO air war wrested control of the province from Serbia — declared independence.
More than 50 countries have recognized Kosovo’s statehood, which Serbia and Russia strongly oppose.