NATO reopens ransacked Kosovan border posts

[David]

PRISTINA (Reuters) - U.N. police backed by NATO peacekeepers reopened two Kosovan border crossings on Wednesday, a day after Serbs burnt them down in the first challenge to the authority of the newly independent republic.

"They are reopened," said U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko.

He said special U.N. police and NATO troops were now in charge, and U.N. border police would be back later in the day -- but not yet the Kosovan police who jointly man the crossings.

A Reuters witness at one post said U.S. troops brought in floodlights and generators and traffic was now moving through.

The test of Western resolve to back up Kosovo's independence with military force had come two days after Pristina declared secession from Serbia, a step the West's major powers have backed but which Belgrade and its ally Moscow reject.

NATO said the attacks were clearly an organized challenge, but one that would not succeed.

"I just want everybody to be fully aware of my determination to maintain, restore a safe and secure environment wherever in Kosovo," said General Xavier de Marnhac, commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force, KFOR.

Destroying the border posts was "perhaps not pretty, but legitimate," said Serbia's Minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic. But Kosovo's U.N. administrator Joachim Ruecker countered that the action was no legitimate at all.

"The Serbian government is bound by their commitment to refrain from all acts that could be seen as encouraging violence and this was really violence so I disagree with that statement," he told a news conference with KFOR commander de Marnhac.

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said Samardzic's comments

"belong to the past."

RUSSIA

The border attacks highlight the challenge facing an EU law-enforcement mission deploying soon to Kosovo, which has been under U.N. administration for nearly nine years following NATO's air war to evict Serb forces and protect Albanians.

The EU mission does not have a U.N. mandate. Serbia does not recognize its authority, and Russia, which has no troops in the Balkans, says it will not permit any attempts at "repressive measures should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply."

"The EU's unilateral decision to send a mission ... is in breach of the highest international law," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the mission would "contribute to a sound political structure" in Kosovo, and said there had been constant contact with Russia.

Serbia and Russia say Pristina's declaration of independence violates a 1999 U.N. resolution on the mainly Albanian region and recognizing it will open a "Pandora's Box" of separatism.

Serbia has recalled envoys from Western capitals and plans a mass protest march in Belgrade for 1600 GMT on Thursday but says it will not resort to violence.

Spokesman Ivanko said the United Nations was working on restoring Kosovo customs at the border posts. But a Western official said Kosovo Serbs were strongly opposed, and seemed to have won a concession for now in return for not obstructing the restoration of the crossings.

Serbian Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic, visiting northern Kosovo on Wednesday, said Serbia would not tolerate customs points between Serbia and the "fake state" of Kosovo.

"We must do everything to establish economic sovereignty in the parts of Kosovo where Serbs live," he told Beta news agency.

Some 120,000 Serbs live alongside 2 million Albanians in Kosovo, half in the north near Serbia and half in isolated southern pockets.

Pieter Feith, the EU's new special representative in Pristina, said Kosovo Serbs should stay and feel welcome in the new republic but the north could not opt out.

"It is the intention of the European Union to deploy its presences ... all over Kosovo," he said. "All over the territory of Kosovo includes the north."

"It should be clear to the Serb community that we are not a threat to their way of life."