Tensions in northern Kosovo escalated this weekend, with gunshots and explosions, when Serb activists blocked several roads in protest against the arrest of a former Kosovar Serb police officer.
Kosovo’s Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said today that the Kosovar police will remove truck and vehicle barricades in northern Kosovo, when they see fit.
“Soon we will reach the situation where there will be no more barricades,” Svecla told reporters in Pristina, without giving further details.
The leader of the northern Kosovo Serbs, Goran Rakic, said on Facebook that he has information according to which the Kosovo Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, will send special units to the north to launch an offensive against the Kosovo Serbs.
“KFOR and Eulex have a responsibility to prevent the chaos that Kurti is preparing,” Rakic said, referring to the NATO-led international force (KFOR) and the European Union civilian mission (Eulex).
VUCIC TALKS ABOUT PRESERVING PEACE
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic convened a session of the National Security Council in Belgrade for today, after which he assured that he will do everything to preserve peace in Kosovo.
“We will give everything to preserve peace,” he said in statements to public television RTS, adding that he has also given orders to the army “for the defense of the homeland.”
Vucic called on the Serbs in northern Kosovo not to attack EULEX or KFOR, while rejecting EU calls for the Serbs to put up the barricades.
“I’m very disappointed. They are cradling their little son, their Albanian son, the monster they created 23 years ago,” he concluded, referring to the departure of Serb forces in 1999.
Eulex, for his part, today denounced an attack last night with a stun grenade against one of his patrols in northern Kosovo.
The EU’s foreign policy officer, Josep Borrell, also condemned the incidents and urged the Kosovo Serbs to dismantle the barricades.
“Calm must be restored. All actors must avoid an escalation (of tension),” Borrell said in a message on his Twitter account.
POSTPONED ELECTIONS
Kosovar Serb activists are trying to prevent the Kosovar police from transferring a former Kosovar Serb policeman detained on suspicion of involvement in recent violence to Pristina.
Some facilities of the Kosovo Central Election Commission in the northern part of the country were attacked this week.
Given the tensions, the president of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, announced last night that the local elections, scheduled for next December 18, will be postponed to April 2023.
The elections are necessary after hundreds of Kosovo Serb representatives withdrew en bloc from all their public functions in Kosovo.
They thus protest against the decision of the Kosovar government to prohibit the use of license plates issued by Serbia, a conflict that has meanwhile been resolved by means of an agreement under pressure from the EU and the US.
Vucic had said last night that he will ask KFOR to redeploy Serb soldiers and policemen to Kosovo, to protect the Serb population there, although he acknowledged that he is aware that he will not receive the go-ahead.
KOSOVO SPEAKS OF SERBIAN MILITARIZATION
Serbian security forces left Kosovo in 1999 after 78 days of NATO bombing and accused of committing crimes against humanity against the Kosovar Albanian population for years.
Kurti, for his part, warned today that Serbia “is trying to return its army to Kosovo despite the genocide they committed more than 23 years ago. This is a direct consequence of the militarization of the Serbian state and society.”
“I urge all citizens of Serbia to distance themselves from criminal gangs, financed and directed by Belgrade, who are trying to destabilize the region,” Kurti concluded at a press conference in Pristina.
Kosovo, whose population is 90% of Albanian origin, declared its independence in 2008, which Serbia does not recognize nor do some EU countries, such as Spain or Greece.
The small country has about 1.8 million inhabitants, of whom about 75,000 are Serbs, who live mostly in the northern part of the border with Serbia and reject Kosovo’s sovereignty.
