Belgrade: Serbia once again threatened on Friday to use military force to retake its former province of Kosovo if NATO-led peacekeepers there fail to safeguard the Serb minority from what Belgrade described as the terrorist threat posed by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian authorities.
Gen. Milan Mojsilovic, the chief of staff of the Serbian army, made a brief televised speech in which he declared that the Kosovo Serbs could no longer "tolerate the terror" of the Kosovo government and that Serbia's armed forces were prepared to carry out their duties "in accordance" with the Serbian constitution and any directives from President Aleksandar Vucic.
Following a string of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers, known as KFOR, on the other, Serbia has raised the state of alert for its troops on the Kosovo border. Because of worries that ethnic Albanians and Serbs would openly clash, NATO has recently sent in reinforcements.
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If Serbia intervened militarily in Kosovo, the 4,000 NATO soldiers already present there would come into direct conflict.
Conflict has existed between Serbia and Kosovo, its former province, for many years. More than 10,000 people died in their 1998–1999 conflict, the majority of them Kosovo Albanians. Belgrade has declined to acknowledge Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008.
After Kosovo police seized local municipality buildings in northern Kosovo, where Serbs make up the majority, to install ethnic Albanian mayors who had won in a local election that Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted, tensions erupted once more last month.
The most recent incident involved Kosovo police detaining at least eight Serbs who are suspected of participating in the violent clashes with NATO troops and Kosovo police that left dozens of people hurt on all sides last month.
The chief of staff of the Serbian army stated that Kosovo Serbs could no longer "tolerate the terror of the regime of" Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti in his brief speech to the nation on Friday.
I informed the KFOR commander that we need immediate action taken to protect the Serbian people, according to the facts, Mojsilovic said. We are asking KFOR and other international organisations to do this.
The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo met on Thursday in Brussels, where emergency talks were being hosted by the EU amid worries of a resumption of hostilities.
Assuring the environment and freedom of movement for all communities in Kosovo, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg promised on Thursday that the alliance's peacekeepers "will continue to act impartially" and increase their presence.
Both Serbia and Kosovo are applying for membership in the EU, and in order to do so, their relations must be normalised.
Fears exist that Russia, an ally of Serbia, may incite a new armed conflict in central Europe in an effort to deflect at least some of the attention away from Moscow's aggression in Ukraine.
