Serbia Holds Emergency Session on Kosovo Clashes

Serbia’s President Tomislav Nikolic, outgoing Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic and several ministers held an emergency meeting on incidents in Kosovo on Friday.

Beta news agency reported that Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac, Justice Minister Snezana Malovic and Minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanovic attended the meeting.

Tanjug news agency said that that the meeting of top state officials was in fact a session of the Council for National Security.

The meeting took place after NATO’s Kosovo force, KFOR, started removing Serb barricades in Serb-run northern Kosovo, near Zvecan, on Friday.

At least three Serbs and one KFOR soldier were injured in an incident that broke out.

NATO troops removed barricades in the villages of Rudare and Dudin Krs and blocked all roads leading to the barricades.

The roadblocks were put up by locals after last year's attempt by the Kosovo Albanian government in Pristina to take over two administrative checkpoints in the north.

Serbs are the majority population north of the Ibar River and reject the authority of the government in Pristina, as well as the unilateral declaration of independence made over four years ago by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority.