Serbian President Boris Tadic on Monday sent a letter to the United Nations and the current EU presidency the Czech Republic, asking for their intervention to better protect Kosovo Serbs amid a growing number of violent incidents.
In his letter to UN Security Council member states and Secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, as well as to the Czech Republic, Tadic said that the NATO-led peacekeeping force (KFOR), the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) had failed to act timely to prevent attacks on ethnic Serbs in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, according to a statement released by Tadic's office.
"There was a lack of adequate reactions by the peacekeeping forces which are obligated to protect and secure the Serbs who are the most endangered in Kosovo and Metohija," said the president.
Tadic said that the real intention of the Kosovo government and Albanian extremists to use violence was "to provoke conflicts with Serbs" and "to stop the implementation of the six-point agreement reached between Serbia and the United Nations, which was confirmed by the Security Council."
Kosovo Albanian leadership in Pristina rejected that agreement, which Belgrade cited as its condition for approving EULEX's deployment in the breakaway province in December.
The ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in February 2008. However, Serbia has vowed it would never recognize Kosovo's independence.
The latest wave of violence in Kosovo started last week when two Albanians stabbed a Serb teenage boy, which provoked protests of local Serbs who set afire a number of Albanian-owned businesses and damaged several cars. The violence continued on Sunday night, when two Serbs were beaten up in a Mitrovica neighborhood.
In the night between Friday and Saturday, six firemen and two employees of a local TV station were injured in two separate incidents.
"Such incidents can lead to the worsening of the overall security situation in Kosovo and I am therefore asking for officials of the international community to immediately increase the level of security and to prevent attacks against Kosovo Serbs," Tadic said in his letter.
Source:Xinhua
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