Serbs’ Deaths Raise Ethnic Strains

Two Serbs were killed and two were wounded when their car was shot at in Kosovo, shattering a yearlong lull in attacks on Serbs, police said Sunday.

Serbia’s prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, denounced the shooting near the southern town of Strpce as ethnically motivated, but police denied Serb media reports that three ethnic Albanians had been arrested in the attack.

The United Nations has run Kosovo, the majority-Albanian province that is part of Serbia, since a 1998-99 war ended with the withdrawal of Serb forces. Thousands of Serbs left, and those who stayed have been frequent targets.

The U.N. is expected to decide within weeks whether the province has made enough progress on democratic standards, minority rights and security for “final status” negotiations, which ethnic Albanians hope will bring formal independence.

Serbia’s prime minister pointed to the killings as evidence that such standards are far from being met.

“I want to hear loud and clear from you what kind of standards we are talking about when youths are killed only because they are Serbs,” Kostunica said in a statement addressed to Kosovo’s U.N. governor, Soren Jessen-Petersen.