World News | Serbia Releases 3 Kosovo Police Officers Whose Arrest Fuelled Tensions Between the Balkan Foes

Belgrade (Serbia), Jun 26 (AP) Serbia on Monday released three police officers from Kosovo who were detained near the disputed border between the Balkan foes earlier this month as tensions soared. The release followed demands by the US and European Union that they be set free.

A court in the central Serbian town of Kraljevo said it was releasing the police officers, and they later returned to Kosovo. The court said in a statement that the three were charged with illegal possession of weapons and explosive devices, and will be allowed to remain free pending potential further proceedings.

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The officers were detained in mid-June. Serbia has said they had crossed into the country from Kosovo, while Kosovar authorities insisted they had been kidnapped inside Kosovo and transferred to a Serbian prison.

Serbia's chief negotiator with Kosovo, Petar Petkovic, said the proceedings against the policemen will continue. He said their release from detention was a court decision "and not a political one”.

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In Kosovo, officials demanded that Serbia be held responsible for allegedly violating Kosovo's territory. President Vlosa Osmani thanked the United States for securing the policemen's release “after the act of aggression that Serbia did in Kosovo”.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti tweeted that “even though we are joyous that they get to return to their families, this abduction consists of a serious human rights violation and must be reprimanded. The Serbian aggression must be held accountable.”

The dispute had increased tensions between the two countries, which had flared into recent violent clashes in the Serb-majority north of Kosovo and stirred fears of a renewal of the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo that left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovar Albanians.

The EU last week summoned the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia to Brussels to urge them to defuse the situation, but the meeting produced no immediate breakthrough.

Serbia and its former province Kosovo have been at odds for decades, with Belgrade refusing to recognize Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence. Western efforts to resolve the crisis have increased recently, to avert possible instability in the Balkans as war rages in Ukraine.

Tensions flared anew late last month, including with violent clashes, after Kosovo police seized local municipality buildings in northern Kosovo, where Serbs represent a majority, to install ethnic Albanian mayors who were elected in a local election in April after Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted the vote.

Serbia has demanded that Kosovo police and the mayors pull out from the northern region bordering Serbia and that several ethnic Serbs, who had been detained in Kosovo in the past few weeks, be released. Belgrade has heightened army readiness, threatening a military intervention over alleged “torture” of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo.

In response to Kosovo's actions in taking over the municipal buildings, the United States cancelled the country's participation in a US-led military exercise and halted high-level visits to Pristina.

Washington and most EU states have recognized Kosovo's independence while Russia and China have backed Belgrade's claim to the territory. Serbia lost control over Kosovo after NATO intervened in 1999 to stop the war, forcing Belgrade to end a brutal crackdown against separatist ethnic Albanians. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)