Kosovo demands Serbia withdraw troops from border

1/10/2023 13:54

        Kosovo on Saturday demanded that Serbia withdraw its troops from their common border, saying it was ready to protect its territorial integrity.
        
        Tensions between the two countries have been high since last Sunday when Kosovo police fought around 30 heavily armed Serbs who stormed the Kosovo village of Banjska and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Three attackers and one police officer were killed.
        
        The gunbattle prompted new international concern over stability in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority and declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla uprising and a 1999 NATO intervention.
        
        Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told the Financial Times he did not intend to order his forces to cross the border into Kosovo because an escalation of the conflict would harm Belgrade's aspirations to the join the European Union.