PSNI officers fired a number of baton rounds last night during disturbances involving some 200 people at an event to celebrate the closure of a police station in east Belfast.
The Albertbridge Road, a major thoroughfare which runs from the city centre to residential parts of east Belfast, was closed to traffic by police after 9pm.
A PSNI spokesman said some 200 people in two groups were involved in a confrontation at the junction of Castlereagh Street and Mountpottinger. Some missiles were thrown and police vehicles were also targeted.
The spokesman said officers had discharged a number of baton rounds during the disturbances.
He said no arrests had been made and there were no reports of injuries.
Tensions surfaced when a group of republicans gathered at Mountpottinger police station to mark its final day in operation.
The station was one of 26 the Policing Board agreed earlier this month to sell off to the private sector on the recommendation of Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde.
The area where the trouble started is close to an interface between the nationalist Short Strand enclave and surrounding streets which are strongly unionist. Residents in Short Strand have long been campaigning for the station's closure.
There has been a spate of incidents in the area over the summer and a football team bus, used by Catholics, was targeted last week in what was regarded as a sectarian attack.