(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-01 17:23

PRISTINA - Kosovo police authorities suspended more than 100 Serb officers on Friday for refusing to obey orders from a regional police command.

A total of 129 Serb police officers did not show up for work on Wednesday and Thursday in the Gjilan region in eastern Kosovo.

Police spokesman Veton Elshani said the police command has decided to suspend them "for an indefinite period."

Serb police, who don't want to serve under Kosovo authorities after its unilateral declaration of independence on February 17, earlier rejected an offer from Kosovo police authorities to serve in their birth places or Serb-dominated localities. The suspended Serb police officers demanded to be under direct control of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Also on Friday, some 70 Serb police officers gathered at a police center in central Kosovo to demand an urgent meeting with the UNMIK police command.

UNMIK and Kosovo police have negotiated in the past two days on the return of Serb police officers to the Kosovo police service but failed to reach agreement.

The police stations in eastern Kosovo have been transferred to local authorities, while police centers in northern Kosovo are in UNMIK command.

Serb police officers in the Serb-dominated north have refused to obey orders from their ethnic Albanian superiors since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. But they have remained on duty admitting the authority of UN police.

The Kosovo police service is the most multi-ethnic institution in Kosovo, employing hundreds of Serbs and other non-Albanian officers.