Belgrade calls on Kosovo Serbs to remove barricades

President Aleksandar Vucic says the US and EU have given “strong guarantees” on the dispute with Pristina

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met with representatives of the Kosovo Serbs on Wednesday and asked them to dismantle the roadblocks they had put up, Belgrade’s commissioner for Kosovo, Petar Petkovic, said at a press conference.

Ethnic Serbs in the north of the breakaway province had put up roadblocks three weeks ago, in protest over the arrest of several Serbs and the deployment of heavily armed ethnic Albanian police in their communities. 

The EU and the US gave written guarantees that “participants in the peaceful protests against [ethnic Albanian PM Albin] Kurti’s terror will not be arrested,” Goran Rakic, a local Serb political leader, told Serbian channel TV Pink. Moreover, NATO’s peacekeeping force KFOR also issued new guarantees that “Kosovo Security Forces” won’t be deployed to the Serb-majority counties in the north of the province, he said.

Pristina’s police were not supposed to be in the north either, under the provisions of the 2013  Brussels Agreement with Belgrade, which Kurti’s government said it had no intention of honoring.

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The trucks and tractors blocking the roads in the north of Kosovo have not yet been removed, however, as the local Serbs are waiting for a visit from Vucic himself, reportedly coming later in the evening.

“We don’t trust Kurti’s government. I can say we don’t trust international guarantees, either,” said Rakic.

NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 and handed control of Kosovo to ethnic Albanian separatists, who declared independence in 2008 and have demanded recognition from Belgrade ever since. With support from Russia and China, Serbia has resisted US and EU pressure to do so.

The current standoff began in late July, when Kurti tried to abolish the use of Serbian documents and license plates in the north. After the EU and the US persuaded Kurti to drop that plan, at the end of November, he deployed police to the north and had Dejan Pantic – one of the ethnic Serb officers who resigned in protest over Kurti’s policies – arrested on charges of terrorism.

On Wednesday morning, a Kosovo court ordered Pantic released to house arrest, citing medical concerns. Kurti’s party described as “an act of treason,” according to the Pristina daily Koha. According to the local Serbs, he remains in custody.