In this photo provided by the Serbian Presidential Press Service, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, third right, welcomes European and U.S. officials in Belgrade, Serbia, on October 21, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

The envoys of the European Union and the United States urged on Saturday Kosovo and Serbia to resume dialogue as the only way to de-escalate the soaring tension between the two nations.

This is the first such visit since September 24 when nearly 30 Serb gunmen crossed into northern Kosovo, killing a police officer and setting up barricades, before launching an hours-long gun battle with Kosovo police. Three gunmen were killed.

EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak and his U.S. counterpart Gabriel Escobar, accompanied by top diplomats from Germany, France and Italy, met with Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti in the capital, Pristina, after which they will head to Belgrade.

“If there is no dialogue, there might be a repetition of escalation,” said Mr. Lajcak after meeting with Mr. Kurti.

Mr. Lajcak said they strongly denounced “the terrorist attack against Kosovo police by armed individuals (that) constitutes a clear and unprecedented escalation.”

He added that the attack also “very clearly underlined that both de-escalation and normalisation are now more urgent than ever.”

Both Serbia and Kosova want to join the EU, which has told them that they first need to sort out their differences.

Western powers want Kosovo and Serbia to implement a 10-point plan put forward by the EU in February to end months of political crises. Mr. Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic gave their approval at the time, but with some reservations that haven’t been resolved, mainly the establishment of the Association of the Serb-Majority Municipalities, or ASM.

The EU and U.S. are pressuring Kosovo to allow for the creation of the ASM, to coordinate work on education, health care, land planning and economic development at the local level.

A 2013 Pristina-Belgrade agreement on forming the Serb association was later declared unconstitutional by Kosovo’s Constitutional Court, saying the plan wasn’t inclusive of other ethnicities and could entail the use of executive powers to impose laws.

Pristina fears the new association is an effort by Belgrade to create a Serb mini-state with wide autonomy, similar to Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Mr. Lajcak urged Pristina “to move on the establishment of the Association of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo without further delay.”

“Without this, there will be no progress on Kosovo’s European path,” which both Kosovo and Serbia have set as a primary target.

In July, the EU imposed punishing measures on Kosovo for refusing the ASM, suspending funding of some projects and halting visits of top diplomats.

Following the failure of the September talks between Mr. Kurti and Mr. Vucic and the recent flare-up, it’s unclear when another round of meetings might take place, and the EU appears to have little leverage left.

The United States is the other key player in the process.

Kosovo has called on Europe to sanction Serbia which it blames for the September 24 attack, saying no talks could be further held and demanding higher security measures from Western powers for fear of an increased presence of Serb military forces along its border.

There are widespread fears in the West that Russia could use Belgrade to reignite ethnic conflicts in the Balkans — which experienced a series of bloody battles in the 1990s during the breakup of Yugoslavia — to draw world attention away from its war on Ukraine.

NATO has reinforced KFOR, which normally has a troop strength of 4,500, with an additional 200 troops from the U.K. and more than 100 from Romania. It also sent heavier armaments to beef up the peacekeepers’ combat power.

Serbia and its former province, Kosovo, have been at odds for decades. Their 1998-99 war left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 but Belgrade has refused to recognize the move.

Kosovo police officers evacuate a wounded person at a cross road leading to the Banjska Monastery in the village of Banjska on Sunday, September 24, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Gunmen holed up in a northern Kosovo monastery clashed with authorities Sunday, according to Prime Minister Albin Kurti, hours after a police officer was killed when a patrol was hit by an ambush involving firearms and explosives.

Kurti said that the group of at least 30 heavily armed gunmen were now surrounded by authorities near the village of Banjska, where the patrol had been ambushed earlier Sunday, and called for their surrender.

The attack and ongoing firefight marks one of the gravest escalations in Kosovo in years, following months of mounting tensions and stalling talks between the government in Pristina and Serbia.

“There are at least 30 professional, military or police armed people who are surrounded by our police forces and whom I invite to surrender to our security agencies,” said Kurti during a press conference.

The Serbian Orthodox Church confirmed that gunmen had stormed a monastery in Banjska, where pilgrims from the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad were staying.

Pictures released by Kosovo authorities showed several heavily armed gunmen wearing uniforms, barricading themselves at the monastery.

“We can see armed people in uniforms… they are firing on us and we are firing back,” Kosovo police official Veton Elshani told AFP by phone from Banjska.

Police later said in a statement that at least three attackers had been killed and one arrested. Another four civilian suspects carrying radio equipment and weapons were also arrested.

Kosovo police also confirmed that the Jarinje and Brnjak border crossings between Serbia and Kosovo had been closed following the incident.

Kurti’s comments at the press conference came hours after he called the ambush that killed one police officer and wounded another an act of terrorism and pinpointed the blame on the Serbian government.

“Organised crime with political, financial and logistical support from officials in Belgrade is attacking our country,” Kurti wrote on social media.

The NATO-led KFOR mission said its forces were present in the area, “standing ready to respond if required”.

According to Kosovo law, government authorities are not allowed to enter Orthodox properties, including churches and monasteries, without first receiving permission from the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was set to address the media Sunday evening.

According to the Serbian government’s office for Kosovo, the president’s press conference would “debunk all the lies and hoaxes of Albin Kurti, the creator of chaos and hell in Kosovo.”

The attack comes more than a week after talks between the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo centred on improving ties failed to make a breakthrough during EU-mediated negotiations in Brussels.

The EU has been trying for years to resolve the long-running dispute between the Balkan neighbours that has soured relations since their war more than two decades ago.

Brussels believed it had broken the logjam by hammering out a plan to normalise ties in March, but since then there has been minimal progress.

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell condemned Sunday’s attack, calling the targeting of police “hideous”.

“The responsible perpetrators must face justice,” Borrell wrote on social media.

The diplomatic stalemate comes as tensions in the troubled north have been smouldering for months, following the Pristina government’s decision to install ethnic Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority municipalities in May.

The move triggered one of the worst bouts of unrest in the north in years. Demonstrations followed, as well as the arrest of three Kosovar police officers by Serbia and a violent riot by Serb protesters which saw more than 30 NATO peacekeepers injured.

Kosovo remains overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Albanians, but in the northern stretches of the territory near the border with Serbia, ethnic Serbs remain the majority in several municipalities.

The tussle in the north is just the latest in a long list of incidents to rock the area since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. That was nearly a decade after NATO forces helped push Serbian troops from the former province during a bloody war that killed around 13,000 people.

Belgrade — along with its key allies China and Russia — has refused to recognise Kosovo’s independence, effectively preventing it from having a seat at the United Nations.

During an address to the United Nations General Assembly last week, Serbia’s Vucic accused the West of hypocrisy. He said its recognition of Kosovo’s independence was based on the same justification as Russia’s war on Ukraine.