Kosovo leaders Friday asked the U.N. mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and NATO to establish order in the ethnic Serb-dominated north, after Serb protesters stormed a U.N. court building.
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and President Fatmir Sejdiu demanded UNMIK chief Joachim Rucker to urgently establish order and peace in northern Mitrovica, the Serbian national news agency Tanjug reported.
The Serb employees of prosecution authorities in Mitrovica were protesting because they wanted to return to their jobs. They broke through a police cordon early in the morning, bursting open the gates of the Municipal and District Court, before entering the building and replacing the U.N. flag with a Serbian one.
Kosovo Police Service (KPS) members and UNMIK police guarding the building did not use any force to prevent the disgruntled workers from entering.
There were around 30 fully-armed KPS riot police and several members of the UNMIK police contingent outside the building, but they did not react.
A joint demand has been made to UNMIK police and NATO to urgently throw out hooligans from the UNMIK municipal and district court building in northern Mitrovica, Thaci and Sejdiu said after meeting with Rucker.
Rucker condemned the intrusion and instructed the police to establish peace and order, UNMIK said.
Rucker called on the government in Belgrade to prevent such attacks and reiterated that UNMIK will defend its mandate in the entire territory of Kosovo without exception.
Those who have resorted to violence in northern Mitrovica have crossed one of UNMIK's red lines and it is completely unacceptable, said Rucker, who instructed UNMIK police to establish peace and order in the north and to ensure that the court building is returned to UNMIK control.
He briefed Sejdiu and Thaci on the developments and the measures he had taken.
Prior to the arrival of UNMIK and NATO-led peacekeeping forces in 1999, some 200 Serbs worked in the Mitrovica courts. They have all since been dismissed. They have been protesting daily since Feb. 21, asking to return to their jobs.
Thaci and Sejdiu were also meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who arrived in Pristina in the afternoon on his first visit to Kosovo since its unilateral declaration of independence in February.
Source: Xinhua
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