PRISTINA, Kosovo -A government building was set on fire in Pristina on Saturday as supporters of Kosovo‘s main opposition parties gathered during a rally organised as part of their continued attempts to bring down the government.
Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the group of violent opposition supporters who pelted them with rocks and Molotov cocktails following an anti-government protest in the capital on Saturday.
The violence came at the end of a peaceful rally where several thousand people called on Kosovo’s government to resign, arguing the executive has broken the country’s constitution in reaching deals with Serbia and Montenegro last year.
At the end of the rally, some opposition supporters pelted police and the government building with rocks and other hard objects, despite calls from organizers to disperse peacefully. Part of a government building was set alight before officers intervened.
A few policemen were seen injured and at least two protesters were detained by police.
In December Kosovo’s constitutional Court decided that part of a deal between Kosovo and Serbia, which would give more powers to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo, was not in line with the country’s constitution.
The opposition also has opposed a border demarcation with neighbouring Montenegro.
Since September last year the opposition has blocked Kosovo’s parliament with tear gas, pepper spray, whistles and water bottles to protest the deals and their supporters have held violent protests in Pristina.
The government, the president and the international community have called for dialogue.
The government says the opposition wants to come to power through violence and has called on it to come to parliament to talk.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, an act that Serbia still rejects. The two countries have been holding European Union-mediated talks to overcome their differences.
—
Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania, contributed to this report.
Comments