ZVECAN: Dozens of NATO troops secured a municipal building in the Kosovo town of Zvecan on Tuesday, a day after 30 NATO soldiers and 52 Serb protesters were injured in clashes that EU and NATO officials said were unacceptable as they urged calm.
The NATO military alliance will deploy an additional 700 troops to Kosovo, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. “We have decided to deploy 700 more troops from the operational reserve force for western Balkans and to put an additional battalion of reserve forces on high alert so they can also be deployed if needed,” Stoltenberg said in Oslo.
Russia said “decisive steps” were needed to de-escalate tensions in Kosovo.
“We call on the West to finally silence its false propaganda and stop blaming incidents in Kosovo on Serbs driven to despair, who are peaceful, unarmed, trying to defend their legitimate rights and freedoms,” Russia’s foreign ministry said.
China also expressed its support for Serbia’s efforts to “safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
China has long been a critic of the NATO alliance, stemming partly from the bombing of Beijing’s embassy in Belgrade in the year 1999.