EU wants Kumanovo clashes investigated before it acts

EU wants Kumanovo clashes investigated before it acts

BRUSSELS -- The European Commission has stressed that the clash "between the police and armed persons in Kumanovo must be appropriately clarified."

This must happen "before the EU acts in this regard," the Beta news agency reported from Brussels on Tuesday.

The agency quoted Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who also reportedly assessed as "too far-reaching" the remarks that EU's mission in Kosovo, EULEX, and the EU are not doing their job when it comes to security in Kosovo.

Kocijancic "stressed that the European Commissioner Johannes Hahn made it clear an investigation was necessary to properly clarify the events over the weekend (in Kumanovo)."

She thus responded to a Macedonian journalist's question about whether EULEX and the EU, which oversee Kosovo, are doing their job poorly considering that the group of about 50 terrorists who clashed with the Macedonian police in Kumanovo came from Kosovo "unimpeded."

Kocijancic told the reported that he was "already drawing conclusions."

These events, as she added, "must be appropriately clarified and light must be shed on who is responsible for it, in order for them to act in this regard."

"It should be kept in mind well what Commissioner Hahn said and what the EU made clear in the country itself to understand how we act," the spokesperson has been quoted as saying.

"We are all concerned about what happened over the weekend (in Kumanovo), we condemn any form of violence," Hahn said previously, according to Beta, and added that the EU "urges all involved parties and actors to collaborate in clarifying what has happened, who is responsible for this, and to...