BELGRADE—The European Union told Serbia on Friday to protect embassies after attacks over Western support for Kosovo's secession, and suggested such violence could harm its prospects of closer ties with the bloc.
Rioters stormed the U.S. embassy in Belgrade and set it on fire after a mass state rally for Kosovo on Thursday.
An as yet unidentified body was found inside. The British, German, Croatian and Turkish missions were also attacked.
Washington protested and the U.N. Security Council condemned "mob attacks" which Serbia blamed on isolated vandals.
"Things will have to calm down before we can recuperate the climate that would allow for any contact to move on the SAA (Stabilisation and Association Agreement)," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.
The pact on closer ties was initialled last year. The EU has held off signing it until Serbia arrests war crimes suspects from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s who are still on the run.
Brussels hopes to lure Serbs away from nationalism with the relative stability, prosperity and travel freedom that cooperating with the bloc should bring.
Russia, Serbia's ally, said Western states should have anticipated the backlash over Kosovo, seen by Serbs as the nation's heartland but now home to an Albanian majority who have been under U.N. rule since NATO drove out Serb forces in 1999.
"People who advocated a unilateral proclamation of independence for Kosovo should have calculated the consequences," a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
In the flashpoint city of Mitrovica in north Kosovo, several thousand ethnic Serbs massed to taunt U.N. riot police on the main bridge after a rally against Kosovo's independence.
A Reuters witness said the mostly young crowd was singing patriotic Serbian songs and chanting anti-Albanian slogans. Some lobbed firecrackers towards the police who were blocking the way to the bridge's southern end, in the Albanian part of the city.
Rallies were also scheduled in Serbia's southern city of Nis and Montenegro's capital Podgorica.
"It will send a clear message to the authorities, to not even to think about recognising Kosovo," said Dobrilo Dedeic of Montenegro's Serb People's Party, whose support comes from the 30 percent of Montenegrins who consider themselves ethnic Serbs.
Cheers, Smoke
Kosovo's independence was declared on Sunday and quickly recognised by Washington and most EU states.
Some 250,000 people, according to city authorities, attended Thursday's peaceful official rally in Belgrade, listening to speeches and songs in a melancholy atmosphere. Serbia's Interior Ministry put the number at half a million.
But several hundred young male rioters split off, smashed their way into the U.S. embassy and set fire to part of the building, the second time in a week that it had been attacked. A crowd of about 1,000 cheered "Serbia, Serbia" as one ripped the Stars and Stripes off its pole and others jumped up and down on a balcony, holding a Serbian flag.
Some 130 people were injured in street clashes, including 50 police and some journalists, and almost 200 were arrested. European and U.S. leaders criticised police for a slow reaction.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, whose fiery anti-Western rhetoric has been at the forefront of Serbia's diplomatic battle to keep Kosovo, said the peaceful rally "was magnificent and showed what the people of Serbia thought about Kosovo".
In a statement to state news agency Tanjug, he condemned the violence, saying it "directly inflicts damage to our fight" to protect national interests.
Liberal commentators have attacked him for stoking up tension in the hope that the West would back off from supporting Kosovo so as not to risk a nationalist backlash in Serbia.
"This was a disgrace, it was hooliganism of the worst kind," said Miroslav Markovic, walking his dog past looted, broken kiosks near Belgrade's train station. "The government should have been prepared and not have encouraged these people."
