By Matt Robinson
PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaciwarned Serbia on Tuesday to forget any notions of controllingparts of the new country.
"We understand and respect peaceful reactions, guaranteedby the law, but we will not allow the territorial integrity ofKosovo to be compromised," Thaci said.
Kosovo's Albanian majority declared independence fromSerbia with Western backing on February 17. Serbs in the northof Kosovo reject its secession, fuelling fears the country isdestined for partition.
"I am constantly in contact with NATO to prevent anyonefrom touching even one inch of Kosovo's territory," Thaci, aformer guerrilla commander, told reporters in Racak. Serbsmassacred Albanians in the village in 1999 before NATO went towar to drive out Serb forces.
Some 120,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo, just under half in thenorth in a slice of land that runs adjacent to Serbia and whereSerbs seem intent on cutting remaining ties with Pristina.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has pledged Serbia wouldcontinue to rule parts of Kosovo where "loyal citizens" lookedto Belgrade for government. Belgrade has promised to keepproviding jobs, schooling and infrastructure for Serb areas.
The United States and major European Union powers haverecognised Kosovo, nine years after going to war to save its90-percent Albanian majority from ethnic cleansing by Serbforces trying to crush a guerrilla insurgency.
DAILY PROTESTS
The swift recognitions sparked days of protests in ethnicSerb areas across the Balkans, in Serbia, northern Kosovo,Montenegro and Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic.
NATO's 16,000-strong peace force has stepped up security innorth Kosovo, particularly the flashpoint town of Mitrovica,where Serbs and Albanians are divided by the River Ibar.
The EU, which is deploying a 2,000-strong police andjustice mission to Kosovo, withdrew its small team fromMitrovica due to security concerns.
Hundreds of protesters tried to attack the United Statesconsulate in Bosnia's Serb Republic capital of Banja Luka,after a largely peaceful march by some 10,000 people.
Despite a heavy police presence, the protest turned violentwhen several hundred set off towards the U.S. consulate,throwing stones and firecrackers at the building before theywere pushed away by police.
They also smashed the windows of Croat-owned shops in thecentre of town. Three people were injured, including two policeofficers, the emergency services said. A Reuters witness on thescene said several rioters, mainly minors, were detained.
Russia is now Serbia's main ally in its rejection ofKosovo's secession. Russia's likely next president DmitryMedvedev said a deal to bring Serbia into Russia's South Streamgas pipeline project was a show of support for Belgrade.
The gas deal was intended to show "our support, moral,material and economic, for a state which is in a very difficultposition, a state which unfortunately, by the will of a numberof other states, has had its territorial integrity put indoubt," Medvedev told reporters.
Serbian Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic said it was"insane" that Belgrade was still servicing Kosovo's foreigndebt following independence. Since 1999 this debt servicing hascost Serbia some $150 million (76 million pounds) a year.
Dinkic is a liberal in a government dominated by Kostunica,who insists that Belgrade will do nothing to jeopardise itsclaim on Kosovo.
(Additional reporting by Branislav Krstic and DariaSito-Sucic; Editing by Ellie Tzortzi and Robert Woodward)
