Serbian Minister of Defense Milos Vucevicofficially announced asked NATO permission to deploy forces Ensuring security in Kosovo is a demand not seen since the end of the war war in 1999Complying with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s announcement last weekend after tensions rose in the region.
“As Commander-in-Chief of the President of the Republic of Serbia and to the Prime Minister of the Government (…) shortly before 11:00 am I notified the entry request of up to 1,000 members of the Army and the Kosovo Police”, Vucevic announced on Instagram .
The request, protected according to Serbia by the United Nations resolution 1244, was officially handed over to the representatives of KFOR, the NATO mission in Kosovo, at the administrative gate of Merdare.
According to the decision, Serbia can deploy up to 1000 military, police and customs personnel At Christian Orthodox religious sites, Serb-dominated areas and border crossings, subject to approval by the KFOR mission command.
Petition in the rejection process
Vucic upgraded this option last weekend. protect the majority of Kosovo Serbs, as he puts it In northern Kosovo, barricades have been erected amid the institutional vacuum in the country’s four Kosovo Serb municipalities after the boycott declared by Belgrade politicians and against the detention of former police officer Dejan Pantic by Kosovo security forces.
Also, in the past few hours, Serbian channel B92 reported that a second former Kosovo Serb police officer, Sladjan Trajkovic, was arrested in the north of Mitrovica municipality. According to Serbian public broadcaster RTS, his wife said he had been transferred to Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, where he was charged with “war crimes”.
Petr Petrovic, the Serbian official in charge of relations with Kosovo, described the arrest as another example of a “hunt” by the Kosovo authorities against Serbs.
joint decision
Serbian president announced on Thursday night The “unanimous” decision of the National Security Council complying with this request to send “between a hundred and 1,000 soldiers” They went to the border crossings in Jarinje and Brnjak, knowing that NATO would likely reject the request.
“I think it would be important for the protection of the Serbian people and above all for the control of what they call border crossings, it would greatly reduce tensions and it would be a good decision. But considering everything we’ve heard, we’re assuming, they won’t agree,” he explained.
“They don’t even want to hear it because it’s stick your finger in the eyes of those who want to decide for us“, added Vucic, who this weekend accused the United States and its allies of creating “that monster” that became Kosovo after the end of the war.
President and then Prime Minister Zoran Dindic recalled that Vucic insisted that the request had no precedent and was only addressed in the early 2000s.
The final episode of this long conflict began in November of the party. Serbian List declared Kosovo (List of Serbs) near Belgrade full and complete waiver of local electionsIt is planned to elect the mayors of four Serb-majority municipalities, North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Leposavic and Zvecan, all led by this formation.
violent incidents
last week and a few nights Violent incidents leading to the death of at least one Kosovo Police officerinjured by so-called Serb shots, the situation worsened with the arrest of a Kosovo Serb police officer, one of the resigning police officers, which led to an uprising of the locals with barricades paralyzing the passage through the area.
The Kosovo Police decided to take over the task temporarily. border crossing control EULEX, the EU mission in Kosovo, condemned Jarinje and Brnjak for being the victim of a stun grenade attack on one of their patrols, fortunately without victims to regret.
Finally, the last straw was the submission of Kosovo’s application to join the European Union last Thursday. As of today, five EU Member States, including Spain, does not recognize the independence of the former Serbian provinceie it is unclear how Pristina’s application will be handled, a step that normally takes months in the Council and in this case it could be a more complex process.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti also filed a criminal complaint in the last hours. new arrest of politician Rada Trajkovic, advisor to Minister Nenad Rasic. Rasic, a member of the Party for Democratic Progress of Kosovo, who was removed from the Serbian government, has been controversially held responsible for the Communities and Returns portfolio in the Kosovo government.
“The Serbian autocratic regime again detained adviser Rada Trajkovic for ten hours for the second time this week,” Kurti wrote on his Twitter account this Friday. law enforcement.