Reactions from Pristina, Belgrade, incident on Ibër Bridge

A 17-year-old with ethnic Serb affiliation received stab wounds last evening during a clash with a group of young Albanians in the main bridge over the Iber River in Mitrovica.

Although the event has so far been described as an isolated incident, official Belgrade responses have immediately come as well as Pristina authorities.

Police Continue Investigations

Deputy Police Commander for the Mitrovica region Besim Hoti says police are working intensively to whiteen the case, while motives are not yet known.

The young Serbian is out of danger for life.

And we don't know the reasons and motives, what actually happened, we're in the research. Police investigators are working intensively in co-operation even with the South Regional Directorate by looking at cameras on the Iber River, records of the event and to see what really happened”, Besim Hoti told DW.

Kosovo's incumbent Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj condemned the incident, where a young Serb man received injuries and urged justice bodies to clear the case quickly and catch the authors.

Kosovo is a state of all its citizens and has been a constant example of tolerance and diversity. Such actions are isolated cases and will never violate peace and security in the country”, Ramush Haradinaj says in his reaction.

Vuciq: Do not open the Ibër Bridge

For Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, the <x0-interethnic incident”, as he named it. It's heavy. The bridge over the Iber River should not be opened for circulation, Vuciq said.

“Sulmi against a Serb youth in northern Mitrovica shows how dangerous the opening of the Ibër Bridge is. There is a worship of Albanians with the north of Kosovo. These are bad things and news. That is why I say how dangerous it was to open the Ibër Bridge, as the desire of Albanians is north of Kosovo and the route of King Petar) to Mitrovica”, Aleksandar Vuciq said, according to the media in Serbia.

Wessel: Belgrade give up provocations

To statements by the president of Serbia, Kadri Veseli's former head of the Kosovo Assembly reacted, calling on Vuciqi that this isolated case will not be used for personal interests that violate the security of Kosovo and the” region.

The “Loja that Aleksandar Vuciq is playing, for his narrow interests and for domestic political consumption, is at the expense of our Kosovo Serb fellow citizens. His statement is aimed at undermining Kosovo's security and undermining regional stability. Therefore, I call on Belgrade to give up provocations and leave our Serb fellow citizens at ease of freedom”, Wessel says in his reaction condemning the incident and urging justice bodies to whiteen the case.

Albanians and Serbs have no problems in other settlements within Kosovo, Shrpca, Gracanica, Novoberda and many other countries where the overwhelming majority of the Serb community in Kosovo lives, according to Weselin.

“Problems exist only where Serbia is interested in causing conflict. Kosovo is a democratic, multi-ethnic European state that guarantees maximum human rights and non-ethnic communities, and will by no means allow the creation of artificial walls of interethnic division or hatred”, says Kadri Wessel.

Last night's incident in the Bridge on the Iber River occurs after a long period of no interethnic incidents, though in northern Kosovo, the situation is sometimes easily tense.

The bridge over the Iber River, which several times after the war was the arena of interethnic clashes, divided the town of Mitrovica into two parts, the Serb-dominated north and the majority Albanian south.

For some years now the Bridge continues to be closed for circulation, while a European Commission project for its reconstruction is still ongoing, though now two years under schedule it had to be opened for circulation.