Kosovo Govt Outraged by Serbian Negotiators

Kosovo's government has been infuriated by Serbia's top negotiators in the talks with its former province, saying that the two men entered the Republic of Kosovo illegally.

Kosovo is to deport two top Serbian negotiators for travelling into the country illegally, Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi said Monday, reported DPA.

Goran Bogdanovic, Belgrade's minister for Kosovo, and Borislav Stefanovic, Serbia's chief negotiator, had traveled to Kosovo late Thursday, Rexhepi said.

The two Serbian politicians had been turned back by international troops (KFOR) patrolling the border at the Jarinje crossing, but had apparently managed to cross elsewhere.

At a roadblock in the northern Serb-dominated part of Kosovo where Serbs have been blocking traffic to the border with Serbia since last week, the pair announced that they would restart negotiations with KFOR commander Erhard Buehler.

"Serbian officials who travel into Kosovo without the permission of the Kosovar government and take part in violence cannot be negotiators in this dialogue," Kosovo's top negotiator, Edita Tahiri told the Serbian newspaper Danas, referring to the Stefanovic's meeting with the Serbs blocking the road, as cited by DPA.

An Albanian Kosovar policeman died last week in violence when his unit tried to retake control of a border crossing toward Serbia.

Meanwhile, a high-ranking EU diplomat, Robert Cooper, would be traveling to Belgrade and Pristina 'over the next few days,' a spokesman for the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said.

Cooper is expected to kick start negotiations between Serbia and its former territory, though Kosovo has rejected Stefanovic's presence as a mediator.

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