The Serbian army announced on Monday that it has put its troops on high alert at a time of escalating tensions in neighboring Kosovo, where shootings have occurred and roadblocks have been recorded.
“The President of Serbia (…) has determined that the Serbian army is at the highest level of combat readiness, that is, at the level of the use of armed force,” Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic underlined in a statement. statement.
General Milan Mojsilovic, head of the Serbian armies, had already announced that he had been sent to the Kosovo border by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.
“The situation there is complicated,” the general’s chief of staff told Pink Television on Sunday evening, on his way to Raska, ten kilometers from the Kosovo border.
The same source added that “the presence of the Serbian army along the administrative line” is necessary, a term used by the Serbian authorities to denote the border with Kosovo.
The Serbian Ministry of the Interior, for its part, indicated that “all units” will be placed “immediately under the command of the Chief of the General Staff”.
For the seventh consecutive day, the Serbian minority in Kosovo has maintained roadblocks and authorities fear that the concentration of Kosovo’s police will increase tensions in the region.
Shortly before Mojsilovic’s departure for the border area, several Serbian media outlets posted a video on social networks, in which gunshots could be heard, claiming to be “battles” that took place early in the night as Kosovo troops attempted to dismantle a barricade.
This information was immediately denied by the Kosovo Police, who noted on their Facebook page that their members had not taken part in any gunfight.
Media in Pristina, on the other hand, claimed that a patrol from the Kosovo Peacekeeping Force (Kfor), a NATO mission, was in the firing range.
Kosovo’s Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said the Kfor patrol had been attacked, while the NATO mission announced it was investigating shootings that took place “on December 25 near a patrol” of its mission.
“There were no injuries or property damage,” Kfor assured in a statement.
Tensions between Pristina and the Serbian population of Kosovo and Belgrade, which have increased in recent months, have skyrocketed with the arrest of several Serbian police officers who left Kosovo’s police force in November.
Hundreds of Serb representatives withdrew from Kosovo’s institutions after Pristina demanded that Kosovo’s Serb population stop using Serb-issued number plates.
Last week, the Kosovo government warned that if KFOR does not remove Serbian barricades in the north of the country, its security forces will carry out that mission.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti also announced last week that he will request a meeting with the commander of KFOR, who is advocating a negotiated solution to the current crisis.
Belgrade has never recognized the unilateral secession of its former southern province, which it self-declared in 2008 after a war started in 1997 by an Albanian armed uprising that claimed 13,000 lives, mostly Albanians, and led to military intervention by NATO against Serbia in 1999, against the UN.
Since then, the region has recorded sporadic conflicts between the two main local communities, in a country with a third of the area of the Alentejo and a population of about 1.8 million, the vast majority of ethnic Albanians and Muslims.
Source: DN
