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Kosovo police fire teargas at crowd after arrest of opposition lawmaker

Kosovo MP Albin Kurti has been released by police after being detained for questioning over last week’s incident in parliament when he set off a tear gas cannister.

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Police fired tear gas in a bid to disperse the crowds, after the clashes injured three protesters and seven police officers, police spokesman Baki Kelani said.

Two female representatives fainted and were taken to hospital by ambulance, said a reporter who was present. The previous month, in defiance of the agreement, members of the opposition threw eggs at Prime Minister Isa Mustafa as he gave a parliamentary speech.

Kurti was later released. Kurti was later released and told his supporters that he would see them at the next rally.

Several hundred converged on the station in the centre of the capital, throwing stones and concrete ripped up from a square being repaved.

Under the controversial deal, Kosovo gave greater financial and legislative rights to its minority Serb community, including the establishment of an association of Serb-run municipalities. Opposition MPs say it will deepen the ethnic divide and increase Serbia’s power in the country.

A protester kicks off a tear gas canister during clashes with…

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Kosovo declared independence with the backing of the West in 2008, nearly a decade after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation went to war with 11 weeks of air strikes to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians by Serbian forces trying to crush a guerrilla insurgency. But Belgrade has never recognized the move and still considers the breakaway territory as its southern province.

Politicians use tear gas in Kosovo's parliament