Local Serbs are demanding the release of a captured officer.
Mitrovica:
Serbs protesting in the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo erected new barricades on Tuesday, hours after Serbia said it had put its army on high combat alert. after weeks of escalating tensions between Belgrade and Pristina.
The Serbian Ministry of Defense said in a statement late Monday that in response to the latest events in the region and believes that Kosovo is preparing to attack the Serbs and remove the barricades by force, President Aleksandar Vucic ordered the Serbian army and police to step in. highest warning.
“There is no reason to panic, but there is reason to be concerned,” Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic told RTS television late Monday.
Since December 10, Serbs in northern Kosovo have erected barricades in and around Mitrovica and exchanged gunfire with police after the arrest of a former Serb police officer for allegedly attacking police officers who were on duty. served in a previous rally.
About 50,000 Serbs live in the north of Kosovo, where the majority is Albanian and refuses to recognize the Pristina government or state. They consider Belgrade as their capital and are supported by Serbia, from which Kosovo declared independence in 2008.
“Kosovo cannot enter into dialogue with criminal gangs and freedom of movement should be restored. There should be no barriers on any roads,” the Kosovan government said in a statement on Monday. .
It added police were capable and ready to act but were waiting for the NATO peacekeeper KFOR Kosovo, which maintains a neutral role, to respond to their request to remove the barricade.
“We call on all parties to help ensure security and freedom of movement in Kosovo, and prevent misleading stories from affecting the dialogue process,” KFOR said in a statement.
In Mitrovica on Tuesday morning, trucks were parked to block the road connecting the Serb-majority part of town with the Albanian-majority area.
The local Serbs are demanding the release of the captured officer and other demands before they remove the barricade.
Ethnic Serb mayors in northern cities, along with local judges and about 600 police officers, resigned last month in protest at the Kosovo government’s decision to replace car number plates issued by the government. Serbia issued a license plate issued by Pristina.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
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