Angry Kosovo Serbs call Serbian president "traitor"
2 hours ago
Serbian President Tomislav
Nikolic delivers a speech at the Gazimestan memorial, near Pristina,
Kosovo, during a ceremony marking the historic "Battle of Kosovo", on
June 28, 2014 (AFP Photo/Armend Nimani )
Nikolic was
addressing around 1,000 Kosovo Serbs at a ceremony marking the
anniversary of an historic 14th century battle at Gazimestan, around
five kilometres (three miles) southwest of the capital Pristina.
Midway through his speech, several hundred people in the crowd began chanting "traitor" and booing.
Many
Kosovan Serbs are angry over a landmark agreement signed last year that
normalised ties between Serbia and Kosovo, a majority ethnic Albanian
region that declared independence in 2008.
"You betrayed Kosovo!" and "Treason, treason!" were among the shouts directed at Nikolic.
He
was forced to cut short his speech at the historic site where the
Serbian army was defeated by the Ottoman Empire in the 1389 Battle of
Kosovo.
That defeat paved
the way for the Ottoman Empire's 500-year rule in the Balkans, and is
still remembered as a key moment in the clash between Christians and
Muslims in the region.
A
firecracker was thrown at Nikolic, forcing his bodyguards to gather
around the president and escort him quickly from the scene in a
bulletproof convoy.
"Today,
our neighbour Albanians are building houses and are farming. I wish them
luck but want them to know that they are building on Serb soil,"
Nikolic, a hardline nationalist-turned-pro-EU politician said before he
was interrupted.
Serbia
stopped short of recognising Kosovo's independence in last year's
EU-brokered agreement but accepted the Pristina government's control
over the territory. It was rewarded with the opening of EU accession
talks.
Ethnic Serbs number around 120,000 in Kosovo's population of 1.8 million.
Kosovo's
declaration of independence has been recognised by more than 100
countries, including the United States and most EU member states.
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