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EU tells Serbia to protect embassies
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.One person died and more than 150 people were injured in unrest in central Belgrade on Thursday night during which opponents of Kosovo's independence set fire to the U.S. Embassy and attacked those belonging to Britain, Germany, Croatia, Belgium and Turkey. On Friday, the State Department ordered all nonessential diplomats and the families of all American staff at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade to leave Serbia after the attack on the embassy. In the ethnically divided Kosovo city of Mitrovica, long a flash point for violence between ethnic Albanians and Serbs, 5,000 Serb demonstrators Friday confronted United Nations police officers guarding a bridge leading to the Albanian side of the town. The police said no one was injured. The Serb demonstrators waved Serbian flags, threw stones, glass bottles and firecrackers and chanted "Kosovo is ours!" in the fifth day of demonstrations since Kosovo declared independence. Earlier in the week a group of Serbs, some wearing ski masks, torched two UN border posts in northern Kosovo in what appeared to be an attempt to undermine the UN administration and try to force partition of the territory. Posted by: Fred 2008-02-23 |
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