BELGRADE (AFP) — Russia accused the United States Sunday of seeking to humiliate Serbia over Kosovo, while Serb protesters clashed with riot police amid ugly scenes in Vienna.
Passions were high as up to 10,000 Serbs demonstrated in the Austrian capital, going by police and organiser estimates. A mob of around 400 charged towards the US embassy after burning an American flag.
Stopped by police, they made for a neighbourhood with a high number of immigrants from Kosovo and smashed store windows -- with separate scuffles between youths from Serbia and Kosovo breaking out on the city's main shopping street.
Police spokesman Manfred Simettinger said two officers were injured before the crowd was dispersed around 6:30 pm (1730 GMT). Austria has recognised Kosovo's independence declaration.
Meanwhile, Russia, Belgrade's staunchest ally in opposing Kosovo's declaration of independence, said that US backing for the breakaway region was an act of "flagrant cynicism."
"Is it not cynical to openly humiliate the Serbian people and tie Belgrade's Euro-Atlantic prospects to their agreeing to Serbia's dismemberment?" the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Its statement followed a comment by US Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns that Russia was aggravating tensions over the Kosovo issue.
Moscow's comments came ahead of a visit Monday to Belgrade by Russian Deputy Prime Minister and presidential hopeful Dmitri Medvedev.
Medvedev is travelling with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks with Serbia's President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.
They will be the first international leaders to visit since a mass rally in Belgrade on Thursday turned violent, with a section of the US embassy set on fire amid attacks on several foreign missions.
Economic relations are also strong between Belgrade and Moscow, with Russian state gas giant Gazprom buying Serbia's main oil company NIS last month.
The two countries have also signed deals to build an underground gas reservoir and a pipeline through Serbia to pump Russian gas to western Europe.
In addition to the United States, the vast majority of the 27 European Union member states have also backed Kosovo's independence.
Cyprus, Romania and Spain have explicitly refused to recognise it and Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Sunday that his country may never do so.
Kostunica called on the US to "annul" its recognition, state television RTS reported Sunday.
"By continuing with the politics of force, there will be only a deepening of the crisis, which has shaken the foundations of the world order and threatened to endanger peace and stability, not only in the Balkans," Kostunica warned.
Serbia argues that Kosovo's secession violates UN Security Council Resolution 1244, adopted at the end of Kosovo's 1998-1999 war and which put the disputed province under United Nations administration while retaining Serbian sovereignty.
Belgrade also views an imminent EU mission to send 2,000 personnel to train and mentor police, judges and customs officials in Kosovo as a further violation.
Russian NATO representative Dmitri Rogozine, meanwhile, toned down his rhetoric of Friday when he implied that Russia was threatening "brute force" on the Kosovo issue.
"We have no intention of intervening militarily in a heated situation far from our borders," he told Interfax news agency.
He said Russia would use its "absolute political and moral authority in the Balkans" to defend its position.
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