Serbia will investigate the events that led to a gunbattle at a monastery in northern Kosovo that Pristina has blamed on Belgrade, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday, denying any government involvement in the incident.
Kosovo police fought around 30 heavily armed Serbs who barricaded themselves into the Serbian Orthodox monastery in the village of Banjska for hours on Sunday. Three attackers and a Kosovo Albanian police officer were killed in the skirmishes.
"What suspected crimes these would be, that is the question for the prosecutor," he said in his office in Belgrade. No group has come forward to claim responsibility for the attack or explain the motives of the gunmen.that Belgrade had incited the violence, saying Serbia would not benefit from it as that would jeopardise its position in EU-sponsored talks with Pristina.
Vucic pledged Serbia would investigate the origin of weapons seized after the incident by Kosovo police, who have displayed a cache including assault rifles, machine guns, anti-tank rocket launchers, hand grenades, land mines and drones. Belgrade finances schools, public health system, and most of other institutions in parts of Kosovo where Serbs constitute a majority.
He said Kurti's refusal to form an Association of Serb Municipalities, a body that under provisions of a 2013 agreement between Belgrade and Pristina would secure Kosovo Serbs more autonomy, had fuelled tensions that led to the violence in Banjska.
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