Kosovo strategy on north integration anger Serbs (Reuters)

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Fatos Bytyci
26 January 2010

PRISTINA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Kosovo is crafting a plan to gain control of the country's Serb-run north, a top official said on Tuesday, in a move that may stoke ethnic tensions in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica.

With a 90 percent Albanian majority, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but its government does not control the north, inhabited mainly by Serbs who do not recognize Pristina institutions and consider Serbia their home.

Ethnic tensions are especially high in Mitrovica, where a river divides the city into Serb and Albanian halves. Locals rarely cross to the other side, and past tensions have led shootings and bomb attacks.

"We want to have the rule of law there, to hold free elections in three municipalities, to establish the new municipality of Northern Mitrovica and to improve socio-economic conditions," Kosovo's Deputy Prime Minister Hajredin Kuci said.

Kuci was referring to a strategy prepared by his government and the International Civilian Office (ICO), which oversees Kosovo. "We will be careful in our actions because we don't want to implement this strategy with violence but will be careful also to use the legal tools to fight illegal actions."

Belgrade considers Kosovo part of its territory and does not recognize the independence of its former breakaway province.

"We see this as a deliberate provocation and we will try everything not to provoke the other side," said Oliver Ivanovic, State Secretary with the Serbia's Ministry for Kosovo who lives in Mitrovica. "No one should pay too much attention to this document which is just another still-born strategy."

Pristina has never controlled this area of northern Kosovo since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces to stop the killing of Albanians in a two-year counter-insurgency war.

About 120,000 Serbs -- more than 5 percent of the two million population -- live in Kosovo. More than 50,000 live in northern Kosovo which is linked to Serbia by road and railway.

Schools, hospitals and other public institutions are funded by Belgrade, which also issues residents' official documents.

Other Serbs live in enclaves within ethnic Albanian territory. In November, they participated in Kosovo local elections where they established their municipalities according to Kosovo's constitution. Now Pristina wants to create similiar conditions in the north.

A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Kosovo Serbs boycotted the elections or refused to cooperate with the plan, the strategy would have to be reconsidered. It would not be implemented by force, he said.

Relations between Serbia and Kosovo are strained. On Tuesday, Kosovo police stopped a Serb deputy minister who had not sought permission beforehand to visit the region, following a similiar incident earlier this month.

About 10,000 NATO troops and 2,000 police, judges and prosecutors from the European Union remain in Kosovo to oversee the Balkan country's fragile peace. (Additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; and Branislav Krstic in Mitrovica; editing by Adam Tanner and Paul Taylor)

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