Serbia Troubled by North Kosovo Violence

Milivoje Mihajlovic, the head of Serbian government's media office, said on Tuesday that the recent violent incidents exposed ongoing tensions in northern Kosovo which escalate every time there is a political crisis in relations between Belgrade and Pristina.

"As long as these incidents end up with no investigations and as long as attacks on Serbs fall into oblivion and their perpetrators are not found and punished, it will remain the same," Mihajlovic told Serbian public broadcaster RTS.

The spate of violent incidents in Kosovo north started last Thursday, when a 17-year-old Serb was stabbed near the bridge that divides the town of Mitrovica between its Serb-run north and Albanian-run south.

According Kosovo police, several people wearing hoods crossed the bridge from the southern part of the town and attacked a group of Serbs, wounding the teenager.

A day later, three Albanians were injured in the northern part of Mitrovica in two separate attacks. In a third incident on the same day, unknown attackers also injured two Bosniak students.

On Saturday, a 17-year-old Albanian boy went missing in north Mitrovica and police briefly detained two Serbs in the course of their investigation. The two men were released on Tuesday.

On Sunday evening, two Serbs were injured in a shooting in the same town, while the latest incident occurred in nearby Zubin Potok, where unknown persons threw an explosive device into the parking lot of a local police station. There were no injuries but the blast damaged four Kosovo police vehicles.

Goran Rakic and Agim Bahtiri, the mayors of north and south Mitrovica, met on Saturday and agreed to jointly call for an urgent meeting with Kosovo police and international representatives.

"A series of...