Tensions remain high in northern Kosovo, with Serbs blocking roads after shots and explosions rang out overnight, according to Kosovo police. 

The roads were blocked with heavy vehicles and trucks on Sunday, a day after Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic said he would ask the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo to permit the deployment of 1,000 Serbian troops in the Serb-populated north of Kosovo.

The roadblocks, which Serbs say were erected to protest the recent arrest of a former Kosovo Serb police officer, came despite the postponement of the December 18 municipal election opposed by Kosovo Serbs.

Mr Vucic said that his message to the Serbs in Kosovo is that "there is no surrender and there will be no surrender."

He said the Serbs had been forced to erect the barricades to protect themselves from Kosovo security forces.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti accused Belgrade of trying to destabilise Kosovo.

He said Serbia also is trying to bring an end to the EU-mediated dialogue on normalising bilateral ties and take it to the United Nations Security Council, where Belgrade hopes to get support from Russia and China.

Mr Kurti called on Kosovo's Serbs "to distance themselves from the criminal groups and Mr Vucic's regime that is funding them and looking for a war".