In northern Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic, sessions were held yesterday where the elected mayors of these municipalities officially started their mandate after winning the 19 May elections.

Oaths were laid by mayors Goran Rakic, Vucina Jankovic, Srdjan Vulovic and Zoran Todic.

The Kosovo Appellant Court rejected defence appeal against the detention of those arrested on May 28 and extended the custody for 31 men suspected of corruption, smuggling and abuse of office, the Beta news agency reported on Thursday.

The ruling said the detention had to be extended due to the possibilities of suspects tampering with evidence, influencing the witnesses or fleeing.

KFOR spokesman Colonel Vincenzo Grasso told Belgrade daily Politika that the Kosovo police special unit ROSU intervened after shots were fired at police officers in the north of Kosovo.

“Shots were fired at the regular police after the road to Zubin Potok was blocked and a police officer was wounded. Opening fire at the police and obstructing their operations is against the law. The intervention by the Kosovo police special unit was just a reaction to that violent behaviour,” Grasso said.

On the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of Resolution 1244 in the UN Security Council in New York, the latest UN report will be presented, while Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic will point out the need to continuously review the Kosovo issue at the Council's meetings and the consistent implementation of the UNMIK and KFOR mission, report state broadcaster RTS.

The outgoing UK ambassador to Serbia Denis Keefe said on Thursday that his country and Serbia have a complex relationship, but that the two countries share common values, the Beta news agency reported.

Keefe said, visiting the Vojvodina RTV Show Pravi Ugao (Right Angle), that British suggestion of the resolution on Srebrenica in the UN Security Council three years ago was not against Serbia, adding that the reconciliation in the region requested "honesty and open discussion, not the relativisation."

Mayors of the Serb-majority areas in the south of Kosovo congratulated their colleagues from four northern Kosovo municipalities on a convincing election victory, it was said in the statement.