Will a war break out between Serbia and Kosovo?
What happens between Serbia and Kosovo and why. Marco Orioles's article
Yesterday was an evening of high tension between Serbia and Kosovo, amid protests by Kosovar citizens of Serbian ethnicity over a Pristina measure considered unacceptable and mutual accusations of having mobilized troops.
The new provisions on license plates and identity documents
As reported by Sole24Ore , the subject of the dispute is a provision that makes mandatory the use of car plates with the acronym RKS, that is Republic of Kosovo, putting an end to the tolerance for plates issued by Serbian institutions in the four municipalities of the North of Country where there are majorities of Serbian ethnicity.
The provision comes into effect today and car owners have until the end of September to re-register their vehicle.
To aggravate the picture there would be another provision according to which the same Kosovar citizens of Serbian ethnicity will have to hold an identity document issued by the Kosovar institutions to expatriate, contrary to what has happened until now when it was sufficient to show a Serbian document.
The clashes
That was enough to fuel the clashes. As reported by Rai News , the Serbian population of Kosovo and Metohija protested on the main highways of the region by setting up barricades while hundreds of people blocked the main road between Pristina and Raska.
While the sirens sounded in the city of Kosovska Mitrovica and later also in Zugin Potoc, and the sound of bells rose from the churches and monasteries, Serbian groups would open fire on the Kosovar police on the border with Serbia: the Kosovar premier said so. , Albin Kurti , as reported by the Turkish news agency Anadolu.
Meanwhile, other demonstrators blocked the roads leading to the Jarinje and Bernjak border crossings, forcing the authorities to close them.
Uncontrolled rumors of military mobilization
It is in this moment of acute tension that rumors of troop movements spread uncontrollably. According to a rumor circulated in social media, Serbia would have sent the army to the border with Kosovo, in a news that was later denied by the armed forces themselves with a statement published on its website.
Quoting the newspaper Vecherne Novosti , the Russian agency Tass , as reported by the Agi , announced that the Kosovar special forces had been urgently moved from Pristina to the northern provinces.
Local media meanwhile reported that the international KFOR mission, under the leadership of NATO, had promptly sent soldiers to patrol the streets.
The Kfor communiqué
As told by Rai News , however, the same KFOR released a press release during the night in which it stated that "it is closely monitoring the situation and is ready to intervene if stability is jeopardized". The text added that "the general security situation in the northern municipalities of Kosovo remains tense".
– @NATO – KFOR (@NATO_KFOR) July 31, 2022
Vucic's words of fire
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was thinking about it in the meantime to add fuel to the fire when, speaking to the nation in the evening, he said that “the Kosovo Serbs will not tolerate further persecution. We will seek peace, but let me tell you that we will not give up. Serbia is not a country that can be defeated as easily as it was in Milosevic's time ”.
Convoking a meeting of the high ranks of the army late in the day, Vucic attributed, as reported by the New York Times , the responsibility for the clashes to Kurti, comparing him to a "new Zelensky" who intends "to fight against the great Serbian hegemony".
The intimidation of the parliamentarian
But the most incendiary words came from a Serbian parliamentarian from Vucic's party, Vladimir Djukanovic, who with a tweet reported by the New York Times himself stated, with a clear reference to Russian operations in Ukraine, that "Serbia will be forced to start denazification of the Balkans ”.
Russia's straight leg surgery
Although in a night meeting with the American ambassador the Government of Pristina announced that the measure on the plates was postponed for a month, even Russia did not give up raising its voice.
In a TASS statement reported by the Agi , the spokeswoman for the Moscow Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova defined the provisions on license plates and identity documents as another step to expel the Serbian population from Kosovo.
“We ask – continued Zakharova – to Pristina, the United States and the EU that support it, to stop the provocations and to respect the rights of the Serbs in Kosovo. (…) The leaders of the Kosovars know that the Serbs will not remain indifferent when it comes to a direct attack on their freedoms, and they will prepare themselves for a military scenario ”.
The spokeswoman then added that such a development of events “is another proof of the failure of the EU mediation mission. (…) This is also an example of the place that has been prepared for Belgrade in the EU, effectively offering Serbia to endure the lack of rights of its compatriots ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/serbia-kosovo-tensioni/ on Mon, 01 Aug 2022 06:51:33 +0000.