Fighting ongoing in north Kosovo after deadly attack on patrol: PM Kurti

Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti has said at least 30 gunmen were surrounded by authorities in north Kosovo and called for their surrender hours after a patrol was ambushed in the area that killed one police officer.

"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 on Sunday.

Earlier, Kurti said skirmishes between gunmen and authorities in northern Kosovo were ongoing.

"The gunfire against the police is ongoing. This is the reason why we have been calling for Serbia to stop sponsoring terrorist attacks in the north," Kurti wrote on social media.

This comes hours after Kosovo police said in a statement that one policeman had been killed and another wounded in the area during an armed attack on a patrol as it approached a blocked road near the border with Serbia.

The incident took place at 0100 GMT when two heavy vehicles without license plates were positioned on a bridge in the village of Banjska.

The vehicles were blocking the entrance and firing at the police units that arrived "with an arsenal of firearms, including hand grenades and arm launchers".

Condemnation

Kurti was quick to condemn the attack, calling the ambush an act of terrorism.

"The attackers are professionals with masks and armed with heavy weapons. We condemn this criminal and terrorist attack," Kurti wrote on social media.

"Organised crime with political, financial and logistical support from officials in Belgrade is attacking our country," he said.

“The government of the Republic of Kosovo and its state institutions are ready and coordinated to respond to crime and criminals, terror and terrorists,” he added.

NATO troops, along with members of the EU police force EULEX and Kosovo police, could be seen patrolling the road leading to Banjska, according to a reporter.

"Serbia's 'little green men' with armoured vehicles are 15 km inside Kosovo territory (Banjska), where a terror attack against Kosovo police resulted in a police officer being killed & another wounded," Blerim Vela, chief of staff to Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, said in a post on social media platform X.

In her own post on X, Osmani condemned what she said was a terrorist attack by Serbian criminal groups.

There was no immediate reaction on the incident from Serbian officials.

Stalled EU talks

Tensions have run high in Kosovo, the former Serbian province, after clashes in May when more than 90 NATO peacekeeping soldiers and some 50 Serb protesters were injured in northern Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanians form more than 90 percent of the population in Kosovo, with Serbs being the majority only in its northern region where a Serb-majority municipalities association is planned.

EU-sponsored talks on normalising relations between the two former wartime foes stalled last week.

The block's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell blamed Kurti for failing to set up the association of Serb-majority municipalities which would give them more autonomy.