By Matt Robinson
PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo told Serbia on Tuesday it wouldnot yield one inch of its territory, and a violent protest byethnic Serbs in Bosnia against Kosovo's secession highlightedcontinued volatility in the Balkan region.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian Prime Minister Hashim Thaci wasresponding to a Serbian government pledge to ruleSerb-dominated parts of Kosovo following its secession fromSerbia 10 days ago.
Hundreds of protesters tried to attack the United Statesconsulate in the Bosnian Serb Republic capital, Banja Luka,after a largely peaceful march by some 10,000 people. Theystoned the building before being pushed back by riot police.
The windows of Croat-owned shops in the centre of town weresmashed and two policemen were injured in the melee, the latestin a series of violent Serb protests in Belgrade, Novi Sad,Vienna, and northern Kosovo, a Serb stronghold in the newstate.
"We understand and respect peaceful reactions, guaranteedby the law, but we will not allow the territorial integrity ofKosovo to be compromised," Thaci, a former guerrilla commander,said.
"I am constantly in contact with NATO to prevent anyonefrom touching even one inch of Kosovo's territory," he toldreporters in Racak, scene of a Serb massacre a decade ago.
Kosovo's Albanian majority declared independence fromSerbia with Western backing on February 17. Serbs in the northreject the secession, fuelling fears that the country isdestined for partition, and may trigger a Serb secession fromBosnia.
"As long as we live here we will not recognise an act ofviolence and secession of Kosovo from Serbia," Bosnian SerbPrime Minister Milorad Dodik told the Banja Luka rally.
Protest organiser Branislav Dukic, head of a nationalistwar veterans' group pushing for secession, said Bosnia's Serbrepublic is "the last line of defence of Serb dignity". Serbsfear "that every place where the Serbs live will becomeKosovo," he said.
Serbs massacred 44 Albanians in the village of Racak in1999 before NATO went to war to drive out Serb forces, ending acounter-insurgency war in which 10,000 civilians,overwhelmingly Albanian, were killed .
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Kostunica has pledged that Serbian jurisdiction will beupheld wherever "loyal citizens" -- not Albanians -- look toBelgrade for government. He has promised to keep providingjobs, schooling and infrastructure for Serb areas.
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.
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.
Russia is Serbia's main ally in rejecting Kosovo'ssecession, promising political and economic support.
Swift Western recognition sparked days of protests inethnic Serb areas across the Balkans, in Serbia, northernKosovo, 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 force last week took control of two northern bordercrossings after they were burned down by Serb mobs.
The EU, which is deploying a 2,000-strong police andjustice mission to Kosovo, withdrew its small team fromMitrovica due to security concerns.
(Additional reporting by Branislav Krstic and DariaSito-Sucic; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; edited by RalphBoulton)
