Kosovo Serbs have forced the closure of at least two crossing gates on the border with Serbia amid a new stand-off with the ethnic-Albanian dominated government, UN officials said late on Thursday.
A UN peacekeeping chief told a hastily called UN Security Council meeting on Kosovo that demonstrators had closed one crossing gate and a truck was blocking the road to a second.
Hashim Thaci, prime minister of Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian government, has demanded control of border crossings in the Kosovo Serb-dominated part of the country and reportedly ordered an operation on Friday.
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Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters Russia had information that the operation would be carried out with the assistance of the NATO force in Kosovo, KFOR, and an EU law and order mission, EULEX.
Churkin warned that any operation could lead to "bloodshed".
Edmond Mulet, UN assistant secretary general for peacekeeping, gave the Security Council details of the new border tensions.
"Today we were informed that at 9pm local time (Thursday night) gate one was closed by KFOR due to approximately 100 Kosovo Serbs gathered there," Mulet said.
"Although not officially closed, gate 31 has been sealed off by a Kosovo Serb-owned truck completely blocking the road," he added.
Mulet said all public institutions and private businesses will be closed in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo on Friday.
Roadblocks had been re-erected at the main bridge which divides the northern city of Mitrovica as well as on main roads in the north.
The official said the United Nations was "very concerned" that any operation at the border posts "could lead to another outbreak of violence".
NATO troops took control of the border crossings in northern Kosovo in July after clashes that left one ethnic Albanian policeman dead.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday urged calm during a trip to Kosovo which declared itself independent from Serbia in February 2008. Serbia has refused to recognise the split.
NATO stepped in to end an offensive by Serbian forces against ethnic-Albanian separatists in 1998-99.
