February 23, 2008

Serbia Is Warned by Europe to Deter Embassy Attacks

By STEPHEN CASTLE and DAN BILEFSKY
BRUSSELS — European diplomats demanded Friday that Serbia provide better
protection for Western embassies, warning that further talks on ties between
Belgrade and the European Union could not take place unless violence subsided.

In the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica, Kosovo, long a flash point for
violence between Albanians and Serbs, 5,000 Serbian demonstrators confronted
United Nations police officers guarding a bridge leading to the Albanian side of
the town on Friday. The police said no one was injured.

In the fifth day of demonstrations since Kosovo declared independence, the

demonstrators waved flags, threw stones, bottles and firecrackers, and chanted,
“Kosovo is ours.”

Washington and the United Nations Security Council sharply condemned the violence
in Belgrade on Thursday, for which Serbia blamed “isolated vandals.”

One person died and more than 150 people were injured in the unrest, in which
opponents of Kosovo’s independence set fire to the United States Embassy and
attacked those belonging to Britain, Germany, Croatia, Belgium and Turkey. Several
hundred protesters stormed the American Embassy. On Friday afternoon, it remained
barricaded.

The United States ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter, asked the State Department
on Friday to evacuate an unspecified number of nonessential diplomats. Officials
said the ambassador and key staff members would remain.

American and European officials complained that the Serbian police should have
responded more quickly to the attacks.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, arriving for a meeting
in Slovenia, said all governments were obligated to protect foreign embassies.

“Things will have to calm down before we can recuperate the climate that would
allow for any contact to move on the Stabilization and Association Agreement,” Mr.
Solana told Reuters, referring to an accord on closer ties with the European
Union. Later, his aides said he intended the comments not as a threat but as a
statement of reality.

NATO and the European Commission also called for restraint and appealed for
Western embassies to be protected but praised Serbian politicians who condemned
the violence.

Among them was Serbia’s president, Boris Tadic, who said it must “never happen
again.”

“I most sharply condemn the violence, looting and arson,” he said in a statement.
“There is no excuse for the violence. Nobody can justify what happened yesterday.”

Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac described the violence, the worst in the capital
since the pro-democracy protests that overthrew Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, as
“one of Belgrade’s saddest days.” He blamed nationalist politicians for
encouraging the rioting. Senior European Union officials said they were
increasingly alarmed by the nationalist rhetoric of some Serbian politicians,
which they said was helping to incite violence.
In Washington, R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political
affairs, called on Serbia’s main ally, Russia, to repudiate a suggestion by one of
its officials that it may need to use force to earn respect after the United
States and other countries recognized Kosovo’s independence, The Associated Press
reported. “We strongly advise Russia to be more responsible in its public comments
toward Kosovo,” Mr. Burns said, responding to questions in an online written
discussion.

Earlier on Friday, Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry O. Rogozin, said the move to
recognize Kosovo was a “strategic mistake” and suggested that Moscow might have to
use “brute military force” if the alliance expanded its peacekeeping operation
there.

In addition to the attacks on embassies, looters in Belgrade on Thursday ransacked

foreign-owned establishments including Nike and McDonald’s, as well as Serbian
businesses. Serbian shopkeepers said it would take months to recover from the
damage.

Serbian intellectuals cautioned that Brussels should not underestimate the extent
to which the European Union’s support for an independent Kosovo had bred anger.
“There is huge disappointment at what has happened and a feeling of humiliation
and betrayal,” said Ljubica Gojgic, a leading Serbian commentator.

For the time being, she added, “Serbia’s E.U. perspective is on hold.”

Stephen Castle reported from Brussels, and Dan Bilefsky from Pristina, Kosovo.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company