Marko Djuric, the Serbian ambassador to the United States, said his country is calling on NATO to "take charge" of policing in northern Kosovo.
Appearing on Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren," Djuric said Thursday that Serbia wants NATO-led peacekeeping forces to temporarily replace the region's law enforcement as ethnic conflict spikes.
Djuric said the NATO forces will help enforce past agreements between Kosovo and Serbia that, he believes, were violated by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti when he created a "monoethnic police force."
"Unfortunately, in the past 20 months, the situation in Eastern Europe deteriorated," Djuric said of Kurti's controversial tenure, culminating in a daylong shootout near a Christian monastery in Banjska on Sunday.
Around 30 masked Serbs clashed with Kosovar police patrol during the incident, but it is unclear which side initiated it.
The associations of the perpetrators are currently a mystery, too. Kurti has accused Serbia of logistically supporting them, but Serbian officials have denied it. The perpetrators additionally seemed to have used Russian weapons.
Serbia is an ally of Russia and has been for hundreds of years, Politico reported.
Kosovars are an Albanian people who are primarily Muslim and make up most of the Kosovo region. Serbian Eastern Orthodox Christians are a minority in the area but controlled it up until the 1990s.
"It's sad that we are seeing actually a mirror image of what used to happen to the Albanians during the early 90s in Kosovo. Now it's happening by Kurti — the Kosovo Albanian leader — against the Serbs," Djuric said.
Because of the conflict, Djuric said, his country is requesting that "an independent international investigation" be conducted to discover what happened.
"A Serbian monastery was attacked," he contended. "Three local Serbian guys are unfortunately dead, and so is a Kosovo Albanian police officer."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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Luca Cacciatore ✉
Luca Cacciatore, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is based in Arlington, Virginia, reporting on news and politics.
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