BELGRADE (AP)--President Boris Tadic has denied claims that Serbia wants to divide Kosovo along ethnic lines by fomenting violence and tensions in the Serb-dominated north of the newly independent state. 

"There is no secret plan to divide Kosovo," the Serbian president said Thursday night on Pink, the private TV station. 

In Kosovo, a province that is mostly ethnic Albanian, Serbs clashed with U.N. and NATO troops in the northern, Serb-held town of Mitrovica, on Monday, and a U.N. policeman was killed and dozens of people were hurt. 

The U.N. accused Serbian officials of orchestrating the violence with the goal of trying to maintain control over Serb-populated areas of Kosovo. Tadic said that all Serbia wants is to be present in the north of Kosovo to help minority Kosovo Serbs with their everyday lives. 

But the pro-Western president also acknowledged that the Serbian government, which collapsed earlier this month over Kosovo and Serbia's EU integration, has been split over what actions to take to try to keep the territory within Serbia. 

He singled out Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, who has been encouraging Kosovo Serbs to keep on with their protests against Kosovo's independence. 

Tadic said Samardzic, a close ally of nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, was conducting policies which have not been approved by the entire government. Tadic warned that such policies were harming Serbia's interests. 

Samardzic, whom the U.N. in Kosovo accuses of fueling tensions among the Kosovo Serbs, insisted that international troops were responsible for the clashes in Mitrovica, which involved fire arms, gasoline bombs and hand grenades. 

"Whoever lit the match is responsible," Samardzic told Vecernje Novosti newspaper. "We have evidence that someone wanted to create a conflict and a state of war in Kosovo." 

It was the worst violence in Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17. The U.S. and most E.U. countries were quick to recognize Kosovo's statehood, despite strong opposition from Serbia's ally Russia. 

Predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo has been under U.N. control since 1999, when NATO launched an air war to stop former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. Serbia, which considers the territory its historic and religious heartland, says Kosovo's declaration of independence was illegal under international law.