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Kosovo premier urges to refrain from using Serb leader's murder for political purposes

He said the Kosovan government condemned the crime

BELGRADE, January 16. /TASS/. Ramush Haradinaj, the Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Kosovo, came up with an appeal on Tuesday to refrain from using the assassination of Oliver Ivanovic, a political leader of Kosovo's Serb minority for political purposes.

A Kosovo television channel quoted him saying Ivanovic had been active in political life and that is why political excess or even bigger incidents were possible in the wake of the man’s assassination.

He said the Kosovan government condemned the crime and any attempts to use is for political purposes by anyone.

Somewhat earlier, Haradinaj accused Serbia of blocking dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina in Brussels under the pretext of Ivanovic’s murder.

Ivanovic was gunned down on Tuesday morning while entering the office of his Freedom, Democracy, Truth party in the city of Kosovska Mitrovica. A colleague of his told reporter neither she nor anyone else had heard the sounds of shots. It was a neighbor returning from a shop who found the wounded Ivanovic.

Somewhat later, the police found a burned car, in which the assassins had supposedly been riding.

Ivanovic was rushed to a hospital in Kosovska Mitrovica with five gunshot wounds in the upper region of his chest. Doctors there did everything they could to rescue him but to no avail.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic convened an emergency meeting of the national Security Council in the wake of the assassination, and the head of the government office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Djuric said the Serbian delegation was suspending technical dialogue with the Kosovo authorities in Brussels and returning to Belgrade.