Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti announced that in the night between Saturday and Sunday a policeman was killed and another was not seriously injured following an armed clash in Banjska, a village in the north of the country. Kurti attributed responsibility to «organized crime with the political, financial and logical support of Belgrade», i.e. the Serbian government. He also spoke of a “criminal and terrorist” attack against the police and also said that at 7 in the morning it was still underway by “professionals with masks and heavy weapons”.
Kosovo is a small country that declared itself independent in 2008 and is still not recognized as such by Serbian institutions. The ethnic Serb population is a minority in the country but the majority in some towns in the north of the country, where there has been tension between citizens and the Kosovar police for years. The one reported by Kurti is the first episode of violence between the ethnic Serb population and the police after the violent clashes last May, following the installation of the new mayors of four municipalities in the Serb-majority areas. In mid-September Kurti, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Josep Borrell, representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, met in Brussels to discuss a plan to grant greater autonomy to the Serb-majority municipalities in the north , but to no avail.
