Kosovo police on Sunday used tear gas to separate groups of Albanians and Serbs during protests in the divided northern town of Mitrovica against Serb-sponsored municipal elections, DPA reported.
Hundreds of Albanians demonstrated against the elections, which were held Sunday in the northern parts of Kosovo despite warnings by Kosovo and the European Union's law-enforcement mission in Kosovo that they would not recognize the results.
The Albanians, led by veterans of the 1998-99 insurgency against Belgrade, say the elections are illegal and breach the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kosovo.
"There was a delicate situation, since the two groups were approaching each other at the main bridge (in Mitrovica)," Besim Hoti, a Kosovo police spokesperson, told the German Press Agency dpa. "Therefore the police used tear gas to disperse both crowds, in order to prevent a physical contact between them."
Eyewitnesses say both groups threw stones at each other.
The police sealed off the bridge, which divides the city between the Albanian south and Serbian north. NATO troops were also deployed on the bridge.
"The situation is calmer now, as the two groups backed off from the bridge," Hoti said.
The Albanian majority in Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and has since been recognized as a separate state by some 70 countries, including the United States and most of the European Union. But Serbia refuses to do so.
The Serb minority in Kosovo lives largely in the northern parts of the country and recognizes Belgrade's authority, not Pristina's. It boycotted elections previously called by the authorities in Pristina.
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