Global Courant
Belgrade Serbia
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday that the bloc will not tolerate any tensions in northern Kosovo, close to the Serbian border.
“Despite yesterday’s crisis meeting, the escalation continues and becomes dangerous. We will not tolerate it,” Borrell said on social media. “The situation in northern Kosovo is very worrying: extrajudicial arrests of Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Security Forces marching in Southern Mitrovica, followed by heavy rhetoric from Serbia.”
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said that the exercises of the Kosovo Security Force in Southern Mitrovica on Friday are routine.
Regarding a march, “KFOR is fully informed, annual planned activity. It consisted of 215 soldiers from the Minatori garrison to Frasher and back. Disinformation is dangerous and unacceptable.”
About 200 soldiers from the Kosovo Security Force marched in the southern part of Mitrovica, mostly inhabited by Albanians.
Many on social media claimed that the soldiers had gone north, where Serbs live.
After Albanians, Serbs make up the largest ethnic group in Kosovo, especially in the north, next to Serbia. Serbia has never recognized Kosovo’s 2008 independence.
EU says new election is needed
The European Union urged Kosovo on Thursday to suspend police operations in Serb-dominated northern municipalities and to declare new early local elections.
The move comes after a meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kurti in Brussels to find a solution to existing tensions as part of EU facilitating negotiations.
Borrell met with the EU special envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, at separate meetings with the parties.
After April’s elections in northern Kosovo, the EU said low turnout among local Serbs did not provide long-term political solutions to municipalities.
Ethnic Serbs have been protesting the election of mayors since the end of May.
On 30 May, NATO decided to send another 700 soldiers to the alliance-led peacekeeping mission KFOR in Kosovo, after 30 of its soldiers were injured during the riots. Among the reinforcements was a Turkish military unit.
tension at the border
Tensions flared after Kosovo arrested one of the organizers of the 29 May attack on the NATO peacekeeping force deployed amid Serbs’ unrest over the appointment of ethnic Albanian mayors.
Serbia arrested three Kosovo police officers last week, saying they were “planning an action in Serbia”. Kosovo, however, claimed that its officers were abducted.
The EU requires Kosovo and Serbia to reach a final agreement and resolve their disagreements in order to progress in their integration with the bloc.
Most UN member states, including the US, UK, France, Germany and Turkey, recognized Kosovo as a separate country from its neighbor when Pristina declared its independence 15 years ago, but Belgrade continues to see it as its territory.
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