Kosovo PM Kurti presents plan to defuse tension in Serb-majority area

Kosovo's prime minister has presented a plan to defuse tensions in its Serb-majority north that would include fresh local elections and cuts in special police.

Albin Kurti presented his plan on Tuesday to EU and US envoys and called for a follow-up meeting between Serbian and Kosovo officials in Brussels, where the EU is based.

But the arrest the same day of a Serb identified by the Kosovo interior minister as an organiser of assaults on NATO peacekeepers during Serb unrest last month stirred fresh anger in the volatile region.

Around 200 ethnic Serbs gathered in North Mitrovica to protest against the arrest, with Kosovo police in anti-riot gear standing a few hundred metres away. US soldiers with the KFOR peacekeeping force were also in the vicinity.

During the operation to arrest Milun Milenkovic, three ethnic Albanian Kosovo policemen were lightly injured, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said on his Facebook page.

Some 30 peacekeepers and 52 ethnic Serbs were injured in the clashes late last month after ethnic Albanian mayors took office following a local election in which turnout was just 3.5 percent after Serbs who form a majority in the region boycotted the vote.

The United States and European Union have called on Prime Minister Albin Kurti to withdraw the mayors, remove special police used to install them and uphold a 2013 deal for an association of autonomous Serb municipalities in the region.

Kurti said that "violent (Serb) groups have been withdrawn from Kosovo territory (and therefore) the presence of Kosovo police troops in three municipal buildings will be downsized".

Early elections

“The government of the Republic of Kosovo will coordinate with all the actors and announce early elections in four municipalities in the north," Kurti told a press conference after meeting ambassadors of the United States, Italy, France, Germany and Britain, known as the Quint group.

Kurti said nothing about setting up the association of Serb municipalities which would ensure greater autonomy for the Serb majority area. He has been loath to implement the accord, citing fears that it would spur the region to seek to rejoin Serbia.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic urged Kosovo last week to grant more autonomy to Serbs before organising a new vote.

Kosovo declared internationally recognised independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after an uprising by the 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority against repressive Serbian rule. NATO bombing drove out Serbian security forces but Belgrade continues to regard Kosovo only as its southern province.