Serbia accused Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday of meddling in the country's affairs after the Turkish Prime Minister said that "Kosovo is Turkey" during a recent visit to the former Serbian province.

Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 2008 but Belgrade still refuses to recognize its independence.

A Roma schoolgirl whose deportation to Kosovo caused an outcry in France on Monday begged the government to allow her to return with her family.

French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday Leonarda Dibrani could go back to France to continue her schooling after she was deported to Kosovo, but she has refused to return without her family.

An EU-led court in Kosovo has sentenced 10 ethnic Albanians to up to nine years in prison for terrorism aimed at provoking a conflict in southern Serbia, officials said Thursday.

The 10 were found guilty of "terrorism and organisation/participation in a terrorist group... that executed an armed attack on (a) Serbian checkpoint", the EU rule of law mission (EULEX) said in a statement.

Thousands of high school students in Paris and other parts of France rose up Thursday in anger at the deportation of foreign pupils, after the high-profile eviction of a 15-year-old Roma girl.

Leonarda Dibrani was detained during a school trip earlier this month and deported to Kosovo with her parents and siblings, in a case that has raised questions over France's immigration policies, shattered the unity of the ruling Socialist party and landed France's popular Interior Minister Manuel Valls in hot water.

Kosovo has rejected a request by Serbia's prime minister to visit a Serb-majority town in the breakaway territory, saying it would "interfere" with local polls next month, its deputy prime minister said Wednesday.

"We do not want officials from Belgrade to interfere with Kosovo's elections," Hajredin Kuci told Agence France Presse by phone.

Gunmen shot dead a member of the European Union's police force in Kosovo's flashpoint north on Thursday, dealing a serious blow to the EU-led bid to normalize ties between Belgrade and Pristina.

The shooting, the first deadly attack on the mission since its creation five years ago, occurred in a region controlled by ethnic Serbs who reject Albanian-majority Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence.

A EU-led court on Tuesday acquitted a top ethnic Albanian guerrilla commander-turned-politician of war crimes during the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict, saying the evidence of the key prosecution witness was "wholly unreliable".

British judge Malcolm Simons, who chaired the court panel, said Fatmir Limaj and nine other former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were found not guilty of war crimes against the civilian population and prisoners of war.

Kosovo on Saturday lifted a ban on imports from neighboring Macedonia, further defusing a trade row between the Balkan countries.

"The decision (on the ban) of the import from Macedonia will be repealed from this midnight," (2200 GMT), the trade ministry said in a statement.

The Serbian and Kosovo premiers will meet again next month after holding further talks Tuesday to advance their EU-brokered normalization accord, officials said.

Serb Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci met under the auspices of EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton to discuss progress on the deal, especially holding local elections on November 3.

Kosovo's Serb minority leaders on Friday said they would boycott local polls in November, despite appeals by Belgrade to participate as part of a landmark EU-brokered deal with Pristina.

"As the elections... will be organised in accordance with Kosovo constitution and laws, they are unacceptable" for the Serbs living in the north of the breakaway territory, local representatives told reporters in the northern town of Zvecan.