Image copyright AFP Image caption Ivanovic was standing trial for war crimes committed in 1999

A prominent Kosovo Serb politician, Oliver Ivanovic, has been shot dead outside his party offices in the Serb-run north of Mitrovica.

Ivanovic, seen as a moderate Kosovo Serb leader, was shot four times in the chest and died later in hospital, his lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic said.

Serbian government negotiators walked out of EU-mediated talks with Kosovo Albanians in Brussels after the news.

Kosovo remains ethnically divided since unilaterally splitting from Serbia.

Mitrovica - in northern Kosovo - is split, with the south run by Kosovo Albanians.

'An act of terror'

Serbia has reacted furiously to the news of Ivanovic's violent murder, calling it an attack on the entire nation.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that his country should join the investigation into the killing, adding that Serbia was also prepared to carry out its own inquiry.

"For Serbia this is an act of terrorism and we will treat it accordingly," Mr Vucic said.

Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci said his government "strongly" condemned the killing, and promised to "bring the perpetrators to justice".

Image copyright EPA Image caption Ivanovic was shot dead outside his party's offices in Mitrovica

The US ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie, also condemned Ivanovic's murder.

"I call on all Kosovo's justice institutions ... to investigate this incident swiftly and professionally, and bring the perpetrators to justice," Mr Delawie said in a statement.

The EU's special representative for Kosovo, Natalya Apostolova, called on the country's citizens to remain calm and urged authorities to "punish" those responsible.

French Diplomat Bernard Kouchner, who was head of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (Unmik) in 1999, told the BBC he felt "sorrow" at the news and that Ivanovic's death would have an impact on efforts to heal divisions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

"For him the future of Kosovo was something peaceful," Mr Kouchner said, adding that the "process put in place for reconciliation between the Serbs and the Kosovar was working".

Shadow of conflict

Ivanovic, 64, headed a Kosovo Serb party called Freedom, Democracy, Justice. He had played a leading role in negotiations with Nato and the EU.

He was facing a retrial for alleged war crimes against ethnic Albanians committed in 1999.

In January 2016, EU judges in Kosovo sentenced him to nine years, but the verdict was overturned by an appeals court a year later.

Ivanovic had denied all charges.

Kosovo and Serbia - key dates

1991: Start of the violent break-up of Yugoslavia

1996: Rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) steps up attacks on Serbian authorities in Kosovo - met with a Serbian crackdown

1999: Nato bombs Serbian targets - Yugoslav and Serbian forces respond with attacks against Kosovo Albanians but withdraw from Kosovo after a peace agreement

2008: Kosovo unilaterally declares independence

2012: Group of countries overseeing Kosovo since 2008 ends its supervisory role. Nato-led peacekeepers and EU rule-of-law monitors remain

2013: Kosovo and Serbia reach a landmark agreement on normalising relations that grants a high degree of autonomy to Serb-majority areas in the north

2017: Row as Serbia launches train service between Belgrade and northern Kosovo with the slogan "Kosovo is Serbian" painted on it in twenty languages

Ivanovic rose to prominence in Kosovo Serb politics during the territory's conflict in 1999, when Serb forces battled Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas and committed war crimes against ethnic Albanian civilians.

A Nato air campaign forced Serbia to pull its troops out, but an EU law and order team remains in Kosovo.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. It has been recognised by 115 countries, but not by Serbia and its ally, Russia.</s>MITROVICA, Kosovo -- A leading Serb politician in northern Kosovo was shot and killed Tuesday morning, raising ethnic tensions in the region and halting EU-mediated talks between Kosovo and Serbia on the day they were due to resume.

Assailants opened fire on Oliver Ivanovic close to the offices of his political party in the Serb-controlled northern city of Mitrovica. He was taken to a hospital but doctors were unable to save him.

The doctors said that Ivanovic received at least five gunshot wounds to his upper torso. The assailants escaped in a car that was later found burned out. Kosovo police sealed off the area of the shooting and were looking for the attackers.

The Serb delegation at EU talks due to start in Brussels Tuesday immediately left to return to Belgrade.

Delegation leader Marko Djuric said that "whoever is behind this attack ... whether they are Serb, Albanian or any other criminals, they must be punished."

Ivanovic, 64, was one of the key politicians in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, a former Serbian province where tensions remain high a decade after it declared independence. Serbia does not recognize the independence of its former province and the killing is likely to raise tensions between ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs in the region.

In Belgrade, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called a top state security meeting to discuss the shooting, and was later due to address the public.

In Pristina, the Kosovo government strongly denounced the slaying and said it considers it to be a challenge to "the rule of law and efforts to establish the rule of law in the whole of Kosovo territory."

A Kosovo court convicted Ivanovic of war crimes during the 1998-99 war. That verdict was overturned and a retrial was underway.

Ivanovic was considered a moderate opposition Serb politician. In July, his car was set on fire in Mitrovica, the Serb stronghold in northern Kosovo.</s>The head of the Serb party “Freedom, Democracy, Justice”, Oliver Ivanovic was shot dead on the morning of January 16 in the north of Mitrovica in Kosovo.

Party officials said that he was shot in front of his office. He was taken to hospital in Mitrovica, but could not survive the wounds.

Police have cordoned the area off, but no details have yet been provided on the circumstances, motives or the perpetrators.

To continue reading, please click here.</s>Prominent Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic was shot dead in a brazen drive-by shooting on Tuesday that sparked fears of a resumption of ethnic tensions in the volatile region.

The assassination of Ivanovic -- who was facing a retrial on war crimes charges over the 1990s Kosovo conflict -- occurred on the very day that Belgrade and Pristina resumed EU-moderated talks on normalising ties after a hiatus of more than a year.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described the murder as a "terrorist act" against "Serbia as a whole".

Both Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials refrained from explicitly accusing each other of being behind the killing as the international community urged the two sides to remain calm.

Ivanovic, 64, was shot dead by gunmen firing from a car as he arrived at the headquarters of his party in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica at about 8:15 am (0715 GMT), police said.

The moderate politician, who had publicly spoken out against Belgrade's policies in Kosovo, was hit by five bullets and died on the spot, his lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic told AFP.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and the government in Pristina "strongly" condemned the assassination, as did US and UN representatives in Kosovo.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini spoke with Thaci and Vucic and "called on all sides to show calm and restraint and allow the rule of law and justice to take its course," her office said.

After holding an emergency meeting of his national security council, Vucic told reporters Serbia needed to be "actively included in the probe".

"I am convinced that this is AN attack... (targeting) Serb people in Kosovo... and against Serbia as a whole," Vucic said.

And in Pristina, Kosovo premier Ramush Haradinaj was to meet with his national security council later on Tuesday.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said the murder was a "serious blow" to the stability of the entire region.

"It is very important to preserve peace and stability," he told reporters in Podgorica during a visit to neighbouring Montenegro.

Following the assassination, the Serb-populated northern part of ethnically divided Mitrovica was unusually calm and its streets deserted. Dozens of citizens laid flowers and lit candles at the spot of the murder.

Public prosecutor Shyqri Syla told AFP it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.

Police said they found a burnt-out car that was presumably used in the shooting.

In 2016, an EU-backed Kosovo court sentenced Ivanovic to a nine-year jail term after finding him guilty of encouraging the killings of captured ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovska Mitrovica in April 1999.

But in February last year, a Pristina appeals court quashed the sentence and ordered a retrial for Ivanovic, who had been in detention since his arrest in January 2014.

In May, the social-democrat politician and father of four told AFP his private car had been torched in front of his home, describing it as an attempt to silence him.

An Albanian speaker, which is rare for a Kosovo Serb, Ivanovic was in October elected a deputy on northern Mitrovica's municipal council, running against a Belgrade-backed party.

"Serbs are more afraid of Serbs than Albanians," Ivanovic said at the time. "Serb people are afraid to raise their voice" against Belgrade's policy.

Mitrovica is a town of 85,000 people where tensions remain high between the majority ethnic Albanian residents who number about 72,000 and the 13,000-strong Serb community,

A former Serbian state secretary for Kosovo, Ivanovic was a key interlocutor with NATO, the United Nations and later the EU after the war and was seen as backing dialogue with Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.

'Must be brought to justice'

"Whoever is behind this attack... whether Albanian, Serb or any other criminals, they have to be punished, they have to be brought to justice," said the Serb government official in charge of Kosovo Marko Djuric in Brussels, where he was heading the delegation due to hold talks with Kosovo Albanians on Tuesday.

After the assassination, the Belgrade delegation walked out.

Under the auspices of the EU, following pressure from the international community, Kosovo and Serbia have been trying to normalise ties some 20 years since the start of the bloody war that claimed 13,000 lives, mostly ethnic Albanians.

The 1998-99 war between Serbian security forces and Kosovo Albanian guerrillas was ended by a NATO air campaign.

Predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 but Belgrade has rejected the move and still considers the breakaway territory as its southern province.

About 120,000 of Kosovo's 1.8 million inhabitants are ethnic Serbs.</s>
• Ethnic Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic led a small political party in Kosovo and was known as a relative moderate.
• Though he had a troubled past for previous actions against Kosovo's Albanian majority, he was known for cooperating with NATO, UN and EU officials in an order to establish a strong democracy in Kosovo.
• Tensions between Kosovo's Albanian majority and Serb minority are becoming increasingly strained, especially in the divided town of Mitrovica, where Ivanovic lived.



 PRISTINA/BELGRADE (Reuters) - Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic, who was standing trial over the killings of ethnic Albanians during the 1998-99 war, was shot dead on Tuesday in what Serbia called an act of terrorism.

The killing increased tension between Kosovo and Serbia and an ongoing round of European Union-sponsored dialogue on a normalization of relations that was due to take place in Brussels was suspended at the request of Belgrade.

The European Union and United States called on both sides to remain calm and for Kosovo authorities to bring the killers to justice without delay. They also urged authorities in Kosovo, a former Serbian province that won independence a decade ago, and Serbia to recommit to working for a normalization of relations.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic called an emergency session of the country's National Security Council.

"For the Serbian state this is considered an act of terrorism," Vucic said afterward, and Belgrade would demand to be included in the investigation. He declined to comment on whether he believed the killing was ethnically motivated.

Ivanovic, 64, was gunned down in front of his party office in Mitrovica, a town bitterly divided between ethnic Serbs and Albanians, shortly after 8 a.m. (0700 GMT). He was taken to a hospital but doctors failed to revive him.

There were no witnesses to the attack and no shots were heard, suggesting the weapon used had been fitted with a silencer, Serbian media reported. Tanjug news agency quoted his lawyer as saying Ivanovic was shot at least five times.

Police said they found a burnt-out Opel car in the town after the shooting and suspected it was linked to the attack. They offered 10,000 euros ($12,225) to anyone with information that would resolve the case and provided a secure phone line.

The Kosovo government, led by some former commanders of ethnic Albanian guerrillas who rose up against Belgrade's repressive in the late 1990s, also condemned the attack.

"The killing of Oliver Ivanovic challenges the law and any attempt to establish law and order throughout the entire territory of Kosovo," it said in a statement.

Marko Djuric, director of Serbia's government office for Kosovo, said Ivanovic's killing was aimed against the Serbian "people that must and will be punished."

Known as a relative moderate among mainly ultra-nationalist Kosovo Serb politicians, Ivanovic became one of the chief interlocutors for NATO, U.N. and EU officials based in Kosovo to help steer it on a firm path to democracy and the rule of law.

In 2016, he was convicted of war crimes linked to the killings of four ethnic Albanians during the 1998-99 war and was jailed for nine years. But after a retrial was ordered last year, he was released and allowed to defend himself while free.

Serbian officials dismissed the accusations against Ivanovic and said the process against him was staged.

Ivanovic came to prominence shortly after the war as one of the community leaders of Mitrovica Serbs known as the "bridge-watchers" who sought to prevent "infiltration" by Albanians over the Ibar River bridge into the northern half of the town.

The bridge-watchers were often involved in ethnic violence in the early post-war period, after NATO air strikes drove out Belgrade forces accused of killing and expelling Kosovo Albanian civilians in a counter-insurgency campaign.

The group later disbanded but many members branched out into organized crime. Ivanovic entered politics and became known for a pragmatist stance advocating dialogue and compromise with Kosovo Albanians, though still rejecting Kosovo sovereignty.

Some 40,000-50,000 ethnic Serbs live in northern Kosovo, rejecting integration with the mainly ethnic Albanian state.

Relations between Serbia and Kosovo have been tense since 2008, but in 2013 both parties agreed to participate in EU-sponsored negotiations on normalizing relations, a condition for both to progress on their way toward membership in the bloc.</s>A prominent Kosovo Serb politician, Oliver Ivanovic, has been shot dead outside his party offices in the Serb-run north of Mitrovica, the BBC reports.

Ivanovic, seen as a moderate Kosovo Serb leader, was shot four times in the chest and died later in hospital, his lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic said.

Serbian government negotiators walked out of EU-mediated talks with Kosovo Albanians in Brussels after the news.

Mitrovica – in northern Kosovo – is divided, with the south run by Kosovo Albanians.</s>A leading Serb politician in northern Kosovo has been shot dead, raising ethnic tensions in the region and halting EU-mediated talks between Kosovo and Serbia on the day they were due to resume.

A leading Serb politician in northern Kosovo has been shot dead, raising ethnic tensions in the region and halting EU-mediated talks between Kosovo and Serbia on the day they were due to resume.

He was taken to a hospital but doctors were unable to save him. Medics said Mr Ivanovic received at least five gunshot wounds to his upper torso. The assailants escaped in a car that was later found burned out. Kosovo police sealed off the area of the shooting and are looking for the attackers.

The Serb delegation at EU talks which were due to start in Brussels immediately left to return to Belgrade. A Serbian flag and a picture of assassinated Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic outside his office (AP) Delegation leader Marko Djuric said that “whoever is behind this attack … whether they are Serb, Albanian or any other criminals, they must be punished”.

Mr Ivanovic, 64, was one of the key politicians in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, a former Serbian province where tensions remain high a decade after it declared independence. Serbia does not recognise the independence of its former province and the killing is likely to raise tensions between ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs in the region. In Belgrade, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic called a top state security meeting to discuss the shooting, ahead of planned public address.

Kosovo president Hashim Thaci strongly denounced the killing, and called on law enforcement authorities “to throw light as soon as possible on the circumstances of the death so that the perpetrators are brought to justice”. He also urged citizens in the north to cooperate with police.

He said “exploiting this tragic act for daily political goals, even to block processes aiming at normalising ties between two countries, is against the logic and spirit of cooperation”.

He added: “Kosovo remains committed to create a safe environment for all its citizens and is powerfully set in its Euro-Atlantic path.” He also insisted that Kosovo authorities will do their utmost to investigate the killing, adding that they will “in no situation accept the logic of calculating criminal acts for political purposes by anyone”.

A Kosovo court convicted Mr Ivanovic of war crimes during the 1998-99 war. That verdict was overturned and a retrial was under way. Mr Ivanovic was considered a moderate opposition Serb politician. In July, his car was set on fire in Mitrovica, the Serb stronghold in northern Kosovo.</s>Ivanovic was shot at least five times outside his office in the Serb-run Kosovar city of Mitrovica, doctors told Serbian State TV RTS.

He was shot at 8.15 a.m. (2.15 a.m. ET) and died 45 minutes later, his lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic told CNN.

Ivanovic, the 64-year-old head of the Kosovo Serb Freedom, Democracy, Justice party was due to attend EU-mediated talks between delegates from Kosovo and Serbia in Brussels. The talks are aimed at normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

But after his death, the Belgrade delegation left Brussels to return to Serbia, the Serbian government said in a statement.

Ivanovic was facing retrial for alleged war crimes against ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo war. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia 10 years after the bloody conflict between Serb forces and Kosovar-Albanian rebels. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as an independent country. The war between 1998 and 1999 led to thousands of deaths and the displacement of nearly 90% of Kosovo's population.</s>A leading Kosovo Serb politician has been fatally shot outside his party offices in Mitrovica, a restive Serb-held city in the north of Kosovo, Serbian state TV reported Tuesday.

Oliver Ivanovic, 64, was gunned down by unknown assailants as he arrived at his SDP party headquarters just after 8 am and was later pronounced dead by medical staff at Mitrovica Hospital.</s>The killers struck on the very day that Belgrade and Pristina resumed EU-moderated talks on normalising ties after a hiatus of more than a year.

Both Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials refrained from explicitly accusing each other of being behind the killing as the international community urged the two sides to remain calm.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described the murder as a “terrorist act” against “Serbia as a whole”.

Social democrat Ivanovic, 64, a father of four, was facing a retrial on war crimes charges over the 1990s Kosovo conflict.

But he was seen as a moderate politician and as favouring dialogue with Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians.

He had publicly spoken out against Belgrade’s policies in Kosovo, which Serbia still claims as a province despite its independence declaration in 2008.

A former Serbian state secretary for Kosovo, he was a key interlocutor with NATO, the United Nations and later the European Union after the war.

Ivanovic was shot dead by gunmen firing from a car as he arrived at the headquarters of his party in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica at about 8:15 am (0715 GMT), police said.

He was hit by five bullets and died on the spot, his lawyer Nebojsa Vlajic told AFP.

Public prosecutor Shyqri Syla told AFP it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.

Police said they found a burnt-out car that was presumably used in the shooting.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and the government in Pristina “strongly” condemned the assassination, as did US and UN representatives in Kosovo.

Russia warned of the “risk of contagion in an atmosphere of terror and a resurgence of interethnic conflict in the region”, in a statement from the foreign ministry.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini spoke with Thaci and Vucic and “called on all sides to show calm and restraint and allow the rule of law and justice to take its course,” her office said.

After holding an emergency meeting of his national security council, Vucic told reporters Serbia needed to be “actively included in the probe”.

In Pristina, Kosovo premier Ramush Haradinaj met with his national security council and said foreign intelligence would be asked to help the probe “if needed”.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said the murder was a “serious blow” to the stability of the entire region.

“It is very important to preserve peace and stability,” he told reporters in Podgorica during a visit to neighbouring Montenegro.

Following the assassination, the Serb-populated northern part of ethnically divided Mitrovica was unusually calm and its streets deserted. Dozens of citizens laid flowers and lit candles at the spot of the murder.

Late on Tuesday citizens gathered in front of Serbian Orthodox churches in cities throughout Serbia to light candles and pay tribute to the slain leader, Beta news agency reported.

Serbian opposition leaders joined hundreds in front of the Saint Sava temple in central Belgrade.

In 2016, an EU-backed Kosovo court sentenced Ivanovic to a nine-year jail term after finding him guilty of encouraging the killings of captured ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovska Mitrovica in April 1999.

But in February last year, a Pristina appeals court quashed the sentence and ordered a retrial for Ivanovic, who had been in detention since his arrest in January 2014.

In May, he told AFP his private car had been torched in front of his home. He said it was an attempt to silence him.

He was in October elected as a deputy on northern Mitrovica’s municipal council, running against a Belgrade-backed party.

“Serbs are more afraid of Serbs than Albanians,” Ivanovic said at the time.

Tensions remain high between Mitrovica’s ethnic Albanians who number about 72,000 and the 13,000-strong Serb community.

The 1998-99 war between Serbian security forces and Kosovo Albanian guerrillas claimed 13,000 lives, mostly ethnic Albanians. It was ended by a NATO air campaign.

Predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. Belgrade rejected the move and still considers the breakaway territory as its southern province.

The Serb government official in charge of Kosovo, Marko Djuric, was in Brussels heading the delegation due to hold talks with Kosovo Albanians on Tuesday.

After the assassination, the Belgrade delegation walked out.

“Whoever is behind this attack… whether Albanian, Serb or any other criminals, they have to be punished, they have to be brought to justice,” Djuric said.
Oliver Ivanović, the head politician of the Kosovo Serb party Freedom, Democracy, Justice, is killed outside his office in North Mitrovica in a drive-by shooting. Aleksandar Vučić, the President of Serbia says his government treats this as an act of terrorism.