Local elections originally planned for Dec.18-25 in northern Kosovo have been postponed until April due to growing ethnic tensions.

This was announced by President Vjosa Osmani on Saturday after consultations with the political parties in Prishtina. The exact date would be announced later, he said.

The hostilities were triggered by Prishtina’s call for snap elections in four Serb-dominated communes in the north. The Serbs in the north reject Prishtina’s authority and Kosovo’s independence from Belgrade.

Protesters erected roadblocks and engaged in exchanges of fire with police. Initially, no one was injured. The police reported that the officers were fired upon by three different groups near the Bernjak border crossing.

“Extremist groups” had set up barricades in the towns of Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok, Interior Minister Xhlelal Zvecla wrote on Facebook.

On Friday night, Serb militants fired at a Kosovo police patrol in the municipality of Zvecan. A police officer suffered minor injuries and the officers’ vehicle was severely damaged.

On Tuesday, Serb militants also fired shots into the air to disperse election workers and police officers who were preparing for the elections. In response, Kosovo’s police reinforced their forces in the northern part of the divided city of Mitrovica.

Some 300 additional police officers took up positions in the Albanian and Bosniak neighborhoods in the otherwise Serb-majority half of the city.

Source: dpa/MIA