Istanbul: NATO requested a Turkish commando battalion, and it has now arrived in Kosovo to help put an end to recent violent unrest there.
On Sunday, the Turkish Defence Ministry released a video that showed soldiers travelling from Turkiye to Kosovo while sporting the uniform and insignia of the 1999-founded Kosovo Force, a NATO-led peacekeeping mission.
A week ago, 30 foreign soldiers—11 Italians and 19 Hungarians—as well as more than 50 protesters were hurt during violent clashes with ethnic Serbs.
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The soldiers were hurt by improvised explosive incendiary weapons, suffering fractures and burns.
The fights started after Serbs blocked ethnic Albanian candidates from entering municipal buildings in northern Kosovo after those candidates were declared the winners of local elections. The majority of ethnic Serbs abstained from voting.
Since Belgrade refused to accept Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence, Serbia and its former province Kosovo have been at odds for decades.
Fear of a repeat of the conflict in Kosovo from 1998–1999, which claimed more than 10,000 lives and gave rise to the KFOR peacekeeping mission, has been stoked by the violence near their shared border.
Since the late 1990s, Turkiye has maintained close ties with Kosovo. It was one of the first nations to recognise Kosovo's sovereignty.
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NATO declared it would send an additional 700 troops to northern Kosovo after the soldiers were hurt last week. The majority of the NATO reinforcements will consist of about 500 soldiers from Turkiye's 65th Mechanised Infantry Brigade, the military alliance announced on Monday.
The Turkish battalion will be initially based at Camp Sultan Murat in Prizren, Kosovo, and will stay there "for as long as necessary," according to NATO.
Turkey is a crucial and highly regarded ally that significantly contributes to NATO. This includes personnel for our Kosovo peacekeeping mission, which is now more crucial than ever given the high level of tension. After meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday in Istanbul, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, "I thank Turkiye for sending reinforcements to northern Kosovo in the wake of the recent unrest.
To defuse the situation, the Kosovo government and representatives of the nation's ethnic Serb minority traded ultimatums.
Albin Kurti, the prime minister of Kosovo, said the government might think about holding new elections in four northern cities with majority Serb populations, but not until the violent gangs have left.
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The government must first remove special police forces from northern Kosovo before moving forward with the establishment of an association of majoritarian Serb communities, according to the ethnic Serb Srpska List Party. Despite this, the party said it would take part in new municipal elections.
The EU's representative for the Kosovo-Serbia talks, Miroslav Lajcak, arrived in Pristina on Monday to meet with influential figures. Almost 3,800 soldiers make up KFOR at the moment, including 350 from Turkiye.
As a reserve unit, the Turkish commando battalion will participate in the peacekeeping mission