SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Hundreds of demonstrators have staged a protest in Belgrade to mark the 16th anniversary of NATO's 1999 intervention in Serbia.

Flags representing the EU, NATO, Kosovo and U.S. were burned as about 700 people attended the rally staged by the Serbian Radical Party in the Serbian capital on Tuesday.

Protesters shouted slogans saying Serbia will not join NATO nor will the alliance's troops will be accepted on Serbian territory.

Vojislav Seselj, currently awaiting the verdict in his trial on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands, said in a speech to the crowds that his party wanted to display their feelings on Kosovo in a symbolic way and said NATO had bombed the Republika Srpska - one of two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina - and occupied Serbian territory.

He said: "NATO bombed the Serbs in the Republika Srpska and today is occupying and threatening its survival. We will preserve the republic of Srpska at all costs and enable the conditions for it to merge with Serbia."

"NATO killed our children, our civilians, soldiers and police and then occupied the holy Serbian land."

"We will eventually liberate Kosovo and Metohija and our border with Albania," he added.

 Military intervention

NATO's bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which lasted from March 24 to June 1, 1999, was the final phase of the Kosovo War (1996-1999). 

It represents NATO's second most important military engagement after its forces began the military intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Aug. 30, 1995.

The attacks are estimated to have damaged infrastructure worth about $30 billion including industrial facilities, schools, health institutions, media houses, monuments, churches and monasteries.

The final number of victims has not officially been released, but estimates have put the number at between 1,200 and 2,500 killed and 5,000 wounded.

The attacks were completed after the signing of the Military Technical Agreement on the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army and police from Kosovo and Metohija, on 10 June.

On the same day, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1244 under which Kosovo became an international protectorate under the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo and the Kosovo Force.