Kosovo cops fire tear gas to end protest

Kosovo Serbs under the banner reading "Kosovo is Serbia", during a protest against the independence of Kosovo, Monday, Feb .25, 2008, in the Serbian part of the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica. Kosovo Serb protesters rallied against Kosovo's independence in the new nation's tense north, and a few set fire to EU flags in what has become a daily challenge of the country's secession from Serbia. (AP Photo/Srdjan Ilic)

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Kosovo—Police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of Serbs hurling rocks during a protest against Kosovo's independence at a border crossing near the capital Monday.

Some 150 Serbs chanting "Kosovo is Serbia!" pelted ethnic Albanian police with stones and bottles that they brought with them in a truck to the crossing about 18 miles northeast of Pristina, Kosovo police spokesman Veton Elshani said.

Nineteen officers were injured, one seriously, before NATO peacekeepers helped bring the situation under control, he said.

The vast majority of Kosovo's population is ethnic Albanian. Serbs represent just 10 percent of the region's 2 million people, but they view Kosovo as the cradle of their culture and of their Orthodox Christian faith.

In the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, about 2,000 Kosovo Serbs rallied Monday -- as they have every day since the territory's ethnic Albanian leadership declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.

Local ethnic Serb leaders denounced the independence declaration. A few protesters set fire to European Union flags and burned a poster showing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Serbia's pro-Western president, Boris Tadic.

Kosovo had remained a province of Serbia even though it was administered by the United Nations and NATO after 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists, which killed 10,000 people.

Tadic opposes Kosovo's independence but advocates maintaining economic and political ties with the U.S. and other Western nations despite their recognition of Kosovo's statehood. Serbia's hard-line prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, in contrast, advocates severing relations with all states that recognize Kosovo as independent.

In Belgrade, Kostunica reiterated that the Kosovo state "does not exist" as far as Serbia is concerned. He said the Serbian government would seek to "maintain jurisdiction" in Serb-populated areas of Kosovo and urged nations to rescind their recognition of Kosovo.

"There will be no stability in the region and the world until that decision is annulled," he said.

Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, crossed the border Monday to visit Serb communities in Kosovo.

Kosovo's deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuqi, denounced the trip by Samardzic, who has publicly supported Kosovo Serbs who set fire to a border post in the territory's tense north last week.

"Unfortunately, the government of Serbia is continuing with provocation regarding Kosovo's future," Kuqi told The Associated Press. "They need to build some bridges for cooperation with Kosovo, but ... they are provoking us, provoking our people and raising tension in Kosovo."

The top U.N. official in Kosovo, Joachim Ruecker, said he allowed Samardzic into Kosovo on the condition that he issue a public statement "making it very, very clear that he distances himself from violence and the visit is about ensuring peace and calm with the Kosovo Serbs."

Ruecker said he also insisted on meeting with Samardzic to "tell him what we think of some of his recent statements" -- but said later that he was not satisfied with some of the Serbian official's answers.

Samardzic said he told Ruecker that the Serbian government "will do everything to maintain peace in the regions of Kosovo it controls, where the Serbs live."

Dmitry Medvedev, widely expected to be Russia's next president, visited Belgrade on a business trip that underscored the Kremlin's close ties with Serbia.

Russia, which insists that independence for Kosovo without U.N. approval risks encouraging separatist movements worldwide, has emerged as Serbia's primary ally in the Kosovo crisis.

"We actively support Belgrade's demand ... to restore the territorial integrity of Serbia, restore the country's sovereignty," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on state-run Vesti-24 television.

Lavrov claimed NATO and the European Union, which plans to deploy a 1,800-member police and justice mission to Kosovo, were considering using force to keep ethnic Serbs from leaving Kosovo.

"The question of using force to hold back Serbs who do not want to remain under Pristina's authority ... is being seriously discussed," Lavrov said in the broadcast, without offering any evidence. "This will only lead to yet another 'frozen conflict' and will push the prospects for stabilizing Europe -- and first of all for stabilizing the Balkans -- far to the side."

The EU did not immediately respond to Lavrov's remarks. But EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said earlier that the bloc's mission would cover all of Kosovo, including the northern parts where Serbs are concentrated.

Moscow has said the EU mission is illegal because it does not have approval from the U.N. Security Council, where Russia is one of the five permanent members with veto power.

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Associated Press writers Nebi Qena and William J. Kole in Pristina and Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.