UN police re-enter Serb-held town in Kosovo

UN police today began returning to the Serb-held town in northern Kosovo where protesters with guns and hand grenades killed one of their colleagues and wounded dozens more.

Around 40 UN police officers will resume their duties alongside 80 members of the local police force in Mitrovica, which on Monday saw the worst clashes since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia a month ago.

The violence reflected Serbs' rejection of the statehood of the region, which they consider their national heartland.

Today Nato troops removed bundles of barbed wire from the bridge that splits the former industrial city into its Serb and Albanian sectors, but no cars used it.

David McLean, the regional police commander in Mitrovica, said the UN police were returning "gradually" and setting up their operation and patrols. He said he expected to restore the mission "as quickly as possible".

The UN police started returning after Serbs promised they would not be attacked, UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko said. Civilian staff members will return soon, he said.

The United Nations pulled out of Mitrovica and left Nato in charge in the wake of Monday's clashes with Serbs who occupied a UN court.

Larry Rossin, the deputy UN administrator for Kosovo, accused Serbia of orchestrating the violence.

Milan Ivanovic, a hard-line Serb leader from Mitrovica today accused the international forces of using violence to force the Serbs into accepting Kosovo's independence and said that would fail. "We will remain here. This is our homeland," he said.

After the violence, Serbian President Boris Tadic sought to call for renewed talks under the authority of the United Nations as the only way to reach a compromise.

Predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo has been under UN control since 1999, when Nato stopped then-Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Serbia says Kosovo's declaration of independence was illegal under international law.

Today three of its neighbours - Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary - moved to recognise Kosovo as an independent state, despite Belgrade's warnings that could lead to worsening ties and regional tensions.