Tensions are lively in the north of the small state, where in recent days have occurred traffic blockages, shootings and an attack on a police patrol.
MO12345LEMOND With AFP and Reuters
Serbia will ask NATO for authorization to deploy security forces in Kosovo, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday, December 10, while adding no “illusions” on the response. The manager said during a press conference that he would send a letter to the commander of the Force for Kosovo (KFOR), directed by NATO on the UN mandate, under the resolution of the resolution of the Security Council which ended the Kosovo War (1998-1999).
Under the UN resolution, Serbia has the power to deploy up to a thousand soldiers, police or customs officers, on Orthodox religious sites, in the Serbian majority areas and border posts, Subject to the green light from KFOR. It would be the first time that Belgrade would formulate such a request.
Cascade resignations
This announcement by Mr. Vucic follows growing tensions in northern Kosovo Serbian majority. Hundreds of Kosovo Serbs had erected earlier in the day of barricades on a road in the north of the country, blocking traffic at two important points on the border with Serbia, police said. In recent days have occurred explosions, shootings and an attack having targeted a police patrol, in which an Albanian Kosovar policeman has been injured.
According to local media, the protesters of the Serbian minority of Kosovo are outraged by the arrest of a former police officer of Serbian ethnic origin suspected of being involved in attacks against Kosovars police.
The attack in which the policer had been injured Thursday had taken place after the deployment in northern Kosovo of Albanian Kosovars police. According to the government, this deployment was decided after the collective resignation of Serbs working in public institutions, including the police. Serbian members of the police and civil servants had resigned to protest against the decision of the Kosovare authorities to replace the license plates issued by Serbia with those issued by Kosovo.
The last tensions broke out after the Kosovare authorities’ decision to organize on December 18, in the majority of Serbian, local elections that the main Serbian political parties announced that they wanted to boycott. Explosions and shootings were heard Thursday when the officials responsible for the elections visited two municipalities in northern Kosovo in order to prepare the ballot, but no one injured. Shortly after the establishment of barricades, the president of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, announced that she had decided to postpone the local elections to April 23.
The Serbian minority of Kosovo, which has a total of around 120,000 members, refuses loyalty to Pristina with the encouragement of Belgrade, which does not recognize the independence of Kosovo proclaimed in 2008, unlike the United States and the most European countries.