Serb PM Appeals for Calm After Riots

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BELGRADE — Serbia's prime minister appealed for calm on Friday as the European Union sharply condemned overnight rioting in Belgrade during which the U.S. embassy was stormed and other Western missions were damaged.

Serbian police said that one person died and more than 150 people were injured in the violence, which erupted after a state-sponsored rally to protest Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia on Sunday. Nearly 200 people were arrested and 90 shops ransacked, police said in a statement.

The unrest was the first major outburst of anti-Western sentiment in Serbia since former strongman Slobodan Milosevic was ousted in 2000 and replaced by a reformist government.

It exposed a deep rift within the country's shaky coalition government, raising fears that nationalist anger over Kosovo was strengthening the hard-liners who want to move Serbia away from the European Union and closer to its traditional ally Russia.

The United States and EU heavyweights Britain, France and Germany have formally recognized Kosovo.

The morning after angry mobs stormed the city, Belgrade streets were cleared of debris during the morning rush-hour traffic.

On Thursday night, rioters broke into the U.S. mission and set fire to offices and to police guardhouses on the sidewalk in front of the building. The nearby Croatian embassy was also attacked, and a residential building next door was damaged by flames.

Firefighters extinguished the blazes and found a charred body inside the U.S. mission's consular section. An autopsy on the body was being conducted Friday in Belgrade's military hospital, officials said.

Riot police clashed with looters on Thursday in the capital's downtown following the demonstration against Kosovo's independence in which nearly 200,000 people took part.

The European Union warned Serbia on Friday that the attacks risked harming efforts to bring the Balkan nation closer to the EU. The German government also warned the rioting could effect negatively Serbia's cooperation with the EU.

"These acts of violence lead nowhere and they cannot help anybody," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. He told reporters that negotiations on an agreement designed to prepare Serbia for eventual EU membership would have to wait until things "calm down."

The White House also strongly criticized the Serbian government, saying the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade "was attacked by thugs" and Serb police did not do enough to stop it. In a conference call with reporters from Air Force One, presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States had expressed its "concern and displeasure" to the Serbian government.

Pro-Western politicians in Serbia accused hard-line nationalists in the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of inciting the violence in order to demonstrate Serbia's anger at Kosovo's independence.

In Kosovo, the Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci said the violence in the streets of Belgrade was reminiscent of the Milosevic era and his brutal crackdown against the province's ethnic Albanian rebels, which triggered NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999.

Some Belgrade analysts said the nationalists were seeking to fuel anti-Western anger in order to sideline pro-European Union reformists led by the President Boris Tadic.

Tadic's and Kostunica's parties are united in a coalition government that has ruled Serbia since mid-2007.

But the two differ sharply on how to handle Kosovo's independence, with Tadic saying Belgrade must press on with efforts to join the EU regardless of Kosovo, and Kostunica seeking to drop the bid because most EU countries plan to recognize the province's independence.

In a statement Friday, Kostunica appealed for the end of violence.

"This directly damages our ... national interests. All those who support the fake state of Kosovo are rejoicing at the sight of violence in Belgrade," he said, but made no mention of the damaged embassies.

Police said that in addition to the U.S. and Croatian embassies, the missions of Turkey, Bosnia, Belgium and Canada were also targeted.

Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac of Tadic's EU-oriented Democratic Party said rioters were energized by the backing of some nationalist politicians for smaller attacks earlier in the week against Western embassies and commercial interests.

The pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party leader, Cedomir Jovanovic, warned the rioting was a prelude for a crackdown against government critics and pro-Western liberals.

"An atmosphere of lynch has been created," added political analyst Ljubodrag Stojadinovic.

Belgrade's medical emergency center said some 150 people — one third of them policemen — had been treated mostly for light injuries sustained during the night. There were more than 100 arrests, police said.

On Friday, a McDonald's restaurant in the city center was still smoldering from the fire that torched much of the interior. Shops put up plastic sheeting and glass panels to cover their smashed front windows. Several sports goods stores and other shops had been cleaned out by looters leaving display windows completely bare.

Kosovo, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has not been under Belgrade's control since 1999, when NATO launched airstrikes to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. A U.N. mission has governed Kosovo since.

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