Serbian tennis legend Novak Djokovic wrote a message proclaiming that “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia” after a first round win over American Aleksandar Kovacevic at the French Open on Monday. Fighting broke out between Serb protesters and NATO troops in northern Kosovo earlier in the day.
Immediately after defeating Kovacevic, Djokovic approached a video camera – where players traditionally sign autographs – and wrote “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence.”
The longest-reigning champion in ATP history expanded on his message in a post-match press conference.
“As a Serb, it hurts me a lot what is happening in Kosovo,” he said. “The least I could do is this, I feel responsible as a public figure and the son of a man who was born in Kosovo. I feel the need to show support to all of Serbia. I don’t know what the future holds for the Serbian people and Kosovo but it is very necessary to show support.”
“I am against wars and any conflict, I have always expressed this in public,” he continued, adding that “Kosovo is our hearth, our stronghold, the biggest battle took place there, the most important monasteries are located there.”
Djokovic wrote “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia! Stop violence” on the camera after his win today at #RG23 as tensions flare up anew in the region.
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) May 29, 2023
https://t.co/4gLSXg5wbo pic.twitter.com/A6ciqPX2WI
Historically a province of Serbia, Kosovo’s Serb population plummeted due to expulsions during World War II and after NATO waged an air war against Serbia in 1999 on behalf of Albanian terrorists. More than 150 Serbian Orthodox churches, graveyards, and monasteries were destroyed by Albanian separatists between 1999 and 2004, and Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, backed by the US and most of its NATO allies.
Serbs remain the largest ethnicity in some pockets of northern Kosovo, and violence broke out on Monday in one of these locations: the town of Zvecan. NATO troops used tear gas, stun grenades, and allegedly rubber bullets against Serb demonstrators protesting the installation of an ethnic Albanian mayor after an election they boycotted.
Around 50 protesters and 25 NATO troops were injured in the melee, with Western officials blaming the Serbs for instigating the violence, and the Serbs blaming NATO forces. After the brawl, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic accused Kosovo’s Albanian prime minister, Albin Kurti, of trying to “provoke a major conflict between the Serbs and NATO,” and warned that Serbia “will not allow a pogrom or the killing of its people.”
President Vucic: Goal of Aggravation in Kosovo is to Cause Clash Between Serbia and NATO
The security situation in the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo took a turn for the worse late last week after Pristina used force to try to install ethnic Albanian mayors in Serb-majority municipalities in the province's north after a boycott of municipal elections by local residents in April.
Self-proclaimed Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti is interested in spreading unrest in the province's north to try to provoke a clash between Serbia and NATO, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said.
"All of this was organized by Albin Kurti out of his big desire for a conflict between the Serbs and NATO. He is the solely responsible for what is happening, but washes his hands like Pontius Pilate and says this has nothing to do with him," Vucic said in an address to the nation on Monday evening.
"Over the past three days, even the politically illiterate could understand what was being prepared for us today," Vucic said, referring to Monday's localized clashes between ethnic Serb protesters in Kosovo and KFOR, or Kosovo Force, the NATO-led 'peacekeeping' force operating in the breakaway province.
Vucic called on Kosovar Serbs to protest the situation in the province, but to "do it peacefully... Because then no one can defeat them. We will do our best to keep the peace."
Vucic went on to detail the causes of the escalation, saying that as Serbs "from the north of Kosovo and Metohija gathered in front of the municipalities of Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok to express dissatisfaction" with Pristina's appointment of puppet mayors, they were "met with KFOR soldiers and barbed wire."
According to Vucic, KFOR allowed the Kurti-appointed mayors to enter municipal buildings, and then "protected them from the Serbs," instead of protecting local Serbs from Pristina.
"The Serbs proposed that KFOR should stay, that the fake mayors and Kurti's special forces should leave. But no agreement could be reached and KFOR went into action," beating protesters, throwing stun grenades and tear gas, with part of the crowd taking cover, and another part fighting back, the Serbian president said.
Belgrade responded to the escalation in Kosovo by raising the army's combat readiness to its highest level.
Vucic plans to monitor the situation in Kosovo from the administrative border with the breakaway Monday night, and to meet with the US, British, French, Italian and German ambassadors, as well as the head of the European Union delegation in Serbia, on Tuesday morning.
"I am calling on the international community for the last time to reason with Albin Kurti. If they don't, I'm afraid it will be too late. The people of Serbia must know that they have a responsible leadership, and that we will not allow for pogroms and killings of our people," Vucic stressed during Monday's address.
Over 50 Serbs were injured in clashes with KFOR forces in the Kosovo municipality of Zvecan on Monday afternoon, with one protester suffering gunshot injuries. Some Western media have tried to shift the blame onto the demonstrators, reporting up to 41 injuries among KFOR troops, among them 11 Italians. Four Serbs were arrested in the unrest. KFOR commander Angelo Michele Ristuccia slammed protesters for their "unprovoked attacks" on KFOR forces, and assured that KFOR will "continue to impartially carry out its mandate."
The situation in Kosovo has currently calmed down.
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) May 29, 2023
Watch more videos from Sputnik from the events today. pic.twitter.com/jiC0pn083l
Moscow has condemned the violence in Kosovo, and the West's response. Speaking to reporters in Nairobi during his visit to Kenya on Monday afternoon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that a "huge explosion may happen in the center of Europe" if tensions are not calmed. Calling the situation "alarming," Lavrov lamented that Western powers have "of course set a course for the total subjugation of everyone who somehow expresses their own opinion."
Serbia's Open Wound
Kosovo has witnessed several rounds of escalating tensions between local ethnic Serbs and the Pristina government throughout the past year over a variety of pretexts, from measures by Pristina to force Serbs to get Kosovo-issued license plates, to a push by prime minister Kurti to expand NATO's presence in the region to "strengthen security."
Tensions between Kosovar Serbs and Kosovar Albanians began growing after the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and escalated into a full-fledged shooting war in the late 1990s, when ethnic Albanian militants kicked off a guerilla warfare campaign against Serbian police and the military. NATO intervened in the crisis, conducting a 78-day bombing campaign against the rump Yugoslav state between March and June 1999, and later setting up Camp Bondsteel, the largest US military base in the Balkans, in southern Kosovo. The United States and several dozen of its allies recognized Kosovo as an independent state in 2008. Belgrade never recognized Pristina's independence claims. Neither have Russia, China, India, Iran, Brazil, South Africa, Spain and dozens of other countries around the world.
NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters
Around 25 NATO peacekeeping soldiers defending three town halls in northern Kosovo were injured in clashes with Serb protesters on Monday, while Serbia's president put the army on the highest level of combat alert.
KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, condemned the violence.
"While countering the most active fringes of the crowd, several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian KFOR contingent were the subject of unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices," it said in a statement.
Hungary's defense minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that 7 Hungarian soldiers were seriously injured and that they will be taken to Hungary for treatment. He said 20 soldiers were injured. Italian soldiers were also injured in clashes.
"What is happening is absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible," Italy's Giorgia Meloni said in a statement. "It is vital to avoid further unilateral actions on the part of the Kosovar authorities and that all the parties in question immediately take a step back to ease the tensions."
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that 52 Serbs were injured, three of them seriously.
Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic of destabilising Kosovo.
"Serb illegal structures turned into criminal gangs have attacked Kosovo police, KFOR (peacekeeping) officers & journalists. Those who carry out Vucic's orders to destabilise the north of Kosovo, must face justice," Osmani tweeted.
Vucic accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of creating tensions. He called on Serbs in Kosovo to avoid clashes with NATO soldiers.
The tense situation developed after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo's Serb majority area after elections the Serbs boycotted - a move that led the U.S. and its allies to rebuke Pristina on Friday.
In Zvecan, one of the towns, Kosovo police - staffed by ethnic Albanians after Serbs quit the force last year - sprayed pepper gas to repel a crowd of Serbs who broke through a security barricade and tried to force their way into the municipality building, witnesses said.
Serb protesters in Zvecan threw tear gas and stun grenades at NATO soldiers. Serbs also clashed with police in Zvecan and spray-painted NATO vehicles with the letter "Z", referring to a Russian sign used in war in Ukraine.
In Leposavic, close to the border with Serbia, U.S. peacekeeping troops in riot gear placed barbed wire around the town hall to protect it from hundreds of angry Serbs.
Later in the day protesters threw eggs at a parked car belonging to the new Leposavic mayor.
Vucic, who is the commander-in-chief of the Serbian armed forces, raised the army's combat readiness to the highest level, Defence Minister Milos Vucevic told reporters.
"This implies that immediately before 2:00 p.m. (1200 GMT), the Serbian Armed Forces' Chief of the General Staff issued additional instructions for the deployment of the army's units in specific, designated positions," Vucevic said, without elaborating.
NATO peacekeepers also blocked off the town hall in Zubin Potok to protect it from angry local Serbs, witnesses said.
Igor Simic, deputy head of the Serb List, the biggest Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party, accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of fuelling tensions in the north.
"We are interested in peace. Albanians who live here are interested in peace, and only he (Kurti) wants to make chaos," Simic told reporters in Zvecan.
TEAR GAS
Serbs, who comprise a majority in Kosovo's north, have never accepted its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still see Belgrade as their capital more than two decades after the Kosovo Albanian uprising against repressive Serbian rule.
Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90% of the population in Kosovo as a whole, but northern Serbs have long demanded the implementation of an EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.
Serbs refused to take part in local elections in April and ethnic Albanian candidates won the mayoralties in four Serb-majority municipalities - including North Mitrovica, where no incidents were reported on Monday - with a 3.5% turnout
Serbs demand that the Kosovo government remove ethnic Albanian mayors from town halls and allow local administrations financed by Belgrade resume their work.
On Friday, three out of the four ethnic Albanian mayors were escorted into their offices by police, who were pelted with rocks and responded with tear gas and water cannon to disperse the protesters.
The United States and its allies, which have strongly backed Kosovo's independence, rebuked Pristina on Friday, saying imposing mayors in Serb-majority areas without popular support undercut efforts to normalise relations.
Kurti defended Pristina's position, tweeting after a weekend phone call with the European Union's foreign policy chief: "Emphasized that elected mayors will provide services to all citizens."
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told RTS it was "not possible to have mayors who have not been elected by Serbs in Serb-majority municipalities".
Advertisement · Scroll to continue After meeting Kurti, U.S. ambassador to Kosovo Jeffrey Hovenier told reporters: "We are concerned about reports today about violence against official property."
"We've seen pictures of graffiti against KFOR cars and police cars, we've heard about attacks on journalists, we condemn that, that is not appropriate response."
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