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Serbia drifts towards Russia as protests enter sixth day

Putin's chosen successor, Medvedev, to visit Belgrade tomorrow

  • AP, Reuters
  • Published: 01:13 February 24, 2008
  • Gulf News

Kosovska Mitrovica/Belgrade: Several thousand Serbs chanting "Russia, Vladimir Putin!" and "Kosovo is Serbia!" protested peacefully on Saturday in the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica and in a southern Serb enclave, on a sixth day of demonstrations against Kosovo's independence.

In a sign that Serbia is fast drifting away from the West and toward Russia, which is backing its fierce resistance of Kosovo's secession, hard-line Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica condemned anew the US and other nations that have recognised Kosovo as an independent state.

"The United States is the main culprit ... for all those violent acts," Slobodan Samardzic, Serbia's minister for Kosovo, said earlier on Saturday.

First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's chosen successor and the man expected to easily win Russia's presidential election on March 2, is scheduled to visit Belgrade on Monday.

Serbia's top state prosecutor yesterday said that authorities are hunting for participants in riots that targeted the US and other embassies and Western commercial interests.

The State Department has said family members and non-core personnel from the Belgrade mission will be relocated until security improves. The ambassador and essential staff will stay, and the mission will re-open next week, after repairs to the facade of the embassy damaged by the fire.

A charred body that was found inside the building after police moved in to disperse the rioters has not been officially identified.

The Serbian daily Blic reported the victim was a 21-year old student, originally from Kosovo, who moved to Serbia in 1999, when Nato expelled Serb forces from the province to stop the mass killing of civilians in a counter-insurgency war.

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