NATO soldiers wounded by gunfire in Kosovo clash

Kosovo Force (KFOR) soldiers from Germany and Austria fight with Kosovo Serbs during clashes in the village of Jagnjenica near the town of Zubin Potok, November 28, 2011.

ZUBIN POTOK, Kosovo (Reuters) - Two German NATO soldiers were shot and wounded and eight Austrian peacekeepers hurt on Monday in the latest clashes with Serbs in the north of Kosovo who reject the country's 2008 secession from Serbia.

Fighting broke out when NATO peacekeepers began removing roadblocks erected by Serbs in July after Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-dominated government tried to send border police to the mainly Serb north.

Western diplomats warn the turmoil could cost Serbia official candidate status for membership of the European Union when the bloc meets on December 9.

A spokesman for NATO's 6,250-strong Kosovo Force (KFOR) said two soldiers were wounded "by firearms used by demonstrators." The German Bundeswehr said the soldiers were German, and security sources said they were shot in the arm and leg.

Austria's defense ministry said eight of its peacekeepers were hurt, two of them moderately severely, in clashes with violent protesters.

Peacekeepers fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon at several thousand Serbs trying to drive them back from the barricade in the village of Jagnjenica, some armed with sticks and wearing gas masks.

Hospital workers in north Kosovo said they had treated at least a dozen Serbs for wounds inflicted by rubber bullets.

Serbia's pro-Western president, Boris Tadic, said NATO and the EU were obliged to maintain calm in the region, and called on Serb political leaders in the north to control "extremists."

"The lives of our citizens and members of international institutions must be protected in every way," he said in a statement.

EU ACCESSION

Ninety percent of Kosovo's 1.7 million people are ethnic Albanians. Serbs in a small slice of the north bordering Serbia reject Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia, and the West has struggled to tackle the country's de facto ethnic partition.

The EU deployed a police and justice mission in 2008, but it has been unable to operate freely in the north due to Serb resistance.

Brussels says Belgrade must improve relations with Kosovo if it is to make progress toward EU accession, but Kosovo is steeped in history and myth for many Serbs who could punish the government in an election due early next year.

Officials from Serbia and Kosovo are due to meet in Brussels on Wednesday for a new round of talks, this time on two disputed border crossings in the north that are at the heart of the current dispute. Kosovo's government tried to take control of them in July, but was repelled by armed Serbs.

Serbia's state secretary for Kosovo, Oliver Ivanovic, was at the scene of Monday's violence. Asked how the turmoil could affect Serbia's chances of further EU integration next month, he replied: "This is very bad."

Last week, 21 NATO soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in similar clashes.

Serbia lost control over Kosovo in 1999, when NATO bombed for 78 days to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanians in a two-year counter-insurgency war under then-President Slobodan Milosevic.

More than 80 countries, including the United States and 22 of the EU's 27 members, have recognized the state, the last to emerge from the remains of old federal Yugoslavia.

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina, Maria Sheahan in Berlin and Michael Shields in Vienna; writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Philippa Fletcher)