US, European powers recognize Kosovo

PRISTINA, Kosovo – The U.S. and major European powers recognized Kosovo on Monday, a day after the province’s ethnic Albanian leaders declared independence from Serbia. Ecstatic Kosovars danced in the streets when they heard of the endorsements.\nKosovo’s leaders sent letters to 192 countries seeking formal recognition and Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. were among the countries that backed the request. But other European Union nations were opposed, including Spain, which has battled a violent Basque separatist movement for decades.\n“The Kosovars are now independent,” President Bush said during a trip to Africa. \nSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Bush “has responded affirmatively” to Kosovo’s request to establish diplomatic relations.\n“The establishment of these relations will reaffirm the special ties of friendship that have linked together the people of the United States and Kosovo,” Rice’s statement said.\nSerbia withdrew its ambassador from Washington over the U.S. decision to recognize Kosovo.\nAs word of the recognition spread, ethnic Albanians poured into the streets of Kosovo’s capital Pristina to cheer and dance.\nThe republic’s new flag – a blue banner with a yellow silhouette of Kosovo and six white stars representing each of the main ethnic groups – fluttered from homes and offices. But Serb-controlled northern Kosovo was tense with thousands demonstrating against independence and an explosion damaging a U.N. vehicle. No one was hurt.\nBy sidestepping the U.N. and appealing directly to the U.S. and other nations for recognition, Kosovo’s independence set up a showdown with Serbia – outraged at the imminent loss of its territory – and Russia, which warned it would set a dangerous precedent for separatist groups worldwide.\nRussia persuaded the U.N. Security Council to meet in emergency session Sunday in an attempt to block Kosovo’s secession. The council was to meet again later Monday.\nKosovo had formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists, which killed 10,000 people.\nNinety percent of Kosovo’s two million people are ethnic Albanian – most of them secular Muslims – and they see no reason to stay joined to the rest of Christian Orthodox Serbia.\nDespite calls for restraint, tensions flared in northern Kosovo, home to most of the territory’s 100,000 minority Serbs. An explosion damaged a U.N. vehicle outside the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, where thousands of Serbs demonstrated, chanting “this is Serbia!”\nThe crowds marched to a bridge spanning a river dividing the town between the ethnic Albanian and Serbian sides. They were confronted by NATO peacekeepers guarding the bridge, but there was no violence.\nIn a first sign that Serbia was attempting to retake authority in the north of Kosovo, some Serb policemen started leaving the multiethnic Kosovo police force on Monday and placed themselves under the authority of the Serbian government in Belgrade, a senior Kosovo Serb police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.\nAbout 320 Serb policemen are part of the U.N.-established force that has run Kosovo since 1999. The departure of Serb policemen in the force would likely trigger a confrontation with the U.N. administration.