Serbia denied on Monday that it had plans to intervene militarily in Kosovo and downplayed Western concerns about the deployment of troops on the border, without ruling out that the army could receive orders in this regard.
“If the Serbian army receives an order from the Serbian President, as Commander-in-Chief, to invade Kosovo, (…) it will do so effectively and professionally, successfully, but we would announce it to KFor in advance,” said Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic.
Serbia “will do everything to prevent events from developing in this way,” the minister assured at a press conference in Belgrade, quoted by the Spanish agency EFE.
KFor is a NATO-led international peacekeeping force that has been in Kosovo since 1999, based on a United Nations Security Council resolution.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti accused Serbia on Monday of orchestrating the attack on the village of Banjska on September 24, which killed four people, as part of a broader plan to annex northern Kosovo.
Citing investigations by the Kosovo police based on documents seized from the attackers, the aim would be to “create a corridor to Serbia” that would “allow the supply of weapons and troops,” Kurti said, quoted by the French agency AFP.
At the same press conference in Belgrade, Serbian Army Chief of Staff General Milan Mojsilovic denied an increase in combat troops on the border with Kosovo, which was denounced by the United States and the European Union (EU).
Mojsilovic said that on September 25, the day after the attack, the army had 8,350 soldiers in the border area with Kosovo, while in previous crises, in December 2022 and in May this year, it had deployed around 14,000 soldiers.
“At the time there was no concern at all, so it’s surprising that they are now expressing great concern,” he said.
Mojsilovic referred to statements in which Washington and the European Commission expressed concern about what they saw as an unprecedented build-up of troops and weapons by the Serbian army on the border with Kosovo and called for their withdrawal.
According to Mojsilovic, there are currently 4,500 soldiers on the five-kilometer border with Kosovo, which he says corresponds to a normal and regular situation.
Mojsilovic dismissed it as “militarily illogical” that Serbia planned to invade Kosovo “with a group of 30 fighters in Kosovo and 4,500 soldiers on the border”.
The general did not deny Pristina’s accusations that the paramilitaries were trained in Serbian army facilities, but stated that “the Serbian army is a serious formation, which does not improvise.”
The Serbian Defense Minister opined that the videos presented by Kosovo authorities as proof that the Banjska attackers were trained on Serbian territory “mean nothing”.
“These are recordings made in an unknown location, with unidentified people,” said Milos Vucevic.
Source: DN
