NATO will send 700 more peacekeeping troops to north Kosovo and cancel the ongoing Defender 2023 exercise, as tensions between Belgrade and Pristina simmer and China and Russia voicing support for Serbia, while both Brussels and Washington keep their distance through repeated calls to de-escalate.

On Friday, the situation in the Serb majority north of Kosovo deteriorated after ethnic Albanian mayors, elected after Serb officials resigned en masse in late 2022, took office in four northern municipalities. Serbs abandoned the subsequent vote to elect their replacements following calls to do so from Serbia.

Serbs in the north of the country refuse to recognise Pristina’s sovereignty and instead follow the lead of Belgrade.

As such, they do not accept the new mayors elected with the lowest voter turnout in the country’s history and have tried to prevent them from entering municipal facilities. By Monday, the situation had escalated significantly, with scores of injuries reported.

On Tuesday, Serbs continued their protests in four northern municipalities, with journalists in Leposavic reporting being hit with stones, eggs, and bottles thrown by people in masks.

“In the municipality of Leposavic, journalists from more than ten media outlets have been attacked by masked persons…These behaviours by masked protesters are totally unacceptable, and we call on the competent security bodies that are present in this municipality to secure the journalists so that they can report without being attacked and hindered”, says a notice from the Association of Journalists of Kosovo, noting that many were forced to stop filming and had their camera’s broken.

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said 700 troops would be in Kosovo within days.

“We have decided that within days we will send 700 more troops to Kosovo and place additional forces on higher alert. These are cautious steps. NATO and KFOR have the forces and capabilities they need to fulfil the mandate of the UN,” he said.

The commander of NATO’s Joint Forces Command in Naples, Stuart B. Munsch, said the deployment of additional forces is so KFOR will have all the necessary capabilities to maintain peace and security.

“The deployment of additional NATO forces in Kosovo is a prudent measure to ensure that KFOR has the capabilities it needs to maintain security by our UN Security Council mandate,” he said.

This comes after US Ambassador Jeff Hovenier said Kosovo’s participation in the NATO-led Defender 2023 exercise, taking place across the region, would be cancelled as a “consequence” for Pristina.

“Today there was no activity for ‘Defender Europe ’23’, and there won’t be. For Kosovo, those exercises have ended,” said Hovenier.

“We have asked the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, to take steps towards reducing tensions in the north. He has not responded to these requests. We are analysing what our next actions will be”, he added.

Meanwhile, last Friday (26 May) in a tweet Hovenier condemned “the ongoing action by Kosovar authorities to access municipal buildings in the north of Kosovo” as well as asked to put an end to violence.

Similarly, in Brussels on Tuesday, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell called on both sides to de-escalate tensions and to meet for urgent talks.

His comments were not well-received in Pristina as politicians and journalists noted that he refrained from mentioning that Serbs were responsible for the violence against KFOR. Hovenier was also criticised for not acknowledging Serbia’s role in the events.

In a press conference, when questioned by journalists, EU spokesperson Peter Stano said, “High representative Josep Borrell is the representative for foreign policy and security, and he is not there to find out who attacked whom. His role is to ensure that everything is done to reduce tensions and calm the situation. Therefore, he is also committed to reducing tensions. This situation did not come about by itself, but is a consequence of circumstances and developments for which both parties are responsible”.

China and Russia back Belgrade

While the Wests tries to calm things down, China and Russia voiced their support for Serbia.

Spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Mao Ning blamed the violence on Kosovo’s failure to respect Serbian political rights and said they support Serbia’s efforts “to protect sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

“We oppose the unilateral actions of the temporary self-governing institutions of Kosovo,” Mao said during a media conference, referring to Pristina institutions.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning the West and supporting Serbia.

“We call on the West to finally stop its false propaganda and to stop blaming the incidents in Kosovo on the desperate Serbs who are trying to defend their legitimate rights and freedom through peaceful and non-armed means,” said the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Russian Ambassador Aleksandar Bochan-Kharchenko added, “Moscow has the most serious approach in monitoring the development of the situation, and we understand that this kind of development can cause a serious crisis, even an explosion in the entire region.”

Since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine started, Serbia has refused to implement most EU sanctions against Moscow or align more broadly with the bloc and the West’s foreign policy line. Those in the region have been warning for years that Serbia enjoys the support of Russia and that Wagner is present in the country and near the border with Kosovo.

Serbian President Alexander Vucic cancelled a two day visit to Bratislava and took to Instagram to insist that Kosovo withdraws its police forces from the north.

“There is one condition so small that I can’t believe that people from QUINT and the most powerful Western countries cannot fulfil it – that is the withdrawal of Pristina’s special police forces from the north of Kosovo and the removal of fake mayors who do not represent anyone. Truth, justice and Serbia will eventually win,” Vucic said.

Vucic also met with the QUINT ambassadors and expressed concern that the international community tolerates violence, which “has a decreasing number of options that would lead to permanent peace and stability in the region.”

While he expressed regret for the now more than 40 NATO KFOR troops injured, he said many Serbs were injured using firearms and physical resistance.

We don’t give in to extremists

In Pristina, Prime Minister Albin Kurti has remained steadfast that the newly elected mayors are legitimate and must be allowed to carry out their work. He called the protestors extremists and said they did not represent the Serbian people.

“Yesterday, it was finally proved to us and to all of us who we are facing: groups of the extreme right in masks, who vandalise, attack, burn everything that they do not consider Serbian, and who exalt nationalistic and chauvinist symbols, such as the four-pointed cross The S’s and Z’s of Russian aggression in Ukraine,” he said, referring to the appearance of such symbols in the north.

He added, “Extremists and militias have separate names. They are not the people. The Serbian community must be freed from them,” noting that the authorities had identified the ringleaders as those with big business and criminal links, aiming to usurp peaceful protests.

Kurti wants to provoke war

Petar Petkovic, the Chief Negotiator for Serbia in the Brussels-facilitated EU dialogue, told local media that Kurti is trying to provoke a war to avoid his obligations under various EU deals, particularly the Association of Serb Municipalities.

“Kurti is someone who wants to present himself as a little Zelenskyy, but in fact, he is a little Hitler who wants to expel the Serbian people and shoot at the Serbian people, the state of Serbia will not allow him to do that,” Petković noted.

He added that the Serb protest was “peaceful” and that the riot would not have happened if KFOR had not used force against them. “We have no need to clash with NATO, but KFOR’s mandate is to protect the Serbian people,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, opposition parties in Serbia called on the international community to “reason” Kurti to avoid further violence.

The Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka) asked Kurti to withdraw special forces and called on the Serbs not to clash with KFOR, “practically the only armed force in Kosovo and Metohija who can protect them”. The party also welcomed the EU, US equal distance to the matter.

For its part, the Movement of Free Citizens appealed to the Kosovo institutions to remove the “illegitimate mayors”.

“It is quite clear that they will not be able to perform their duties normally, and neither the strong forces of the special police nor the KFOR can enable them to do that. Therefore, it is necessary for the special police to withdraw, and for the process to return to the framework of dialogue. Belgrade and Pristina must find a way to organise new elections in which Serbs from the north would participate, because this situation is unsustainable,” said the Movement of Free Citizens.

(Alice Taylor | Exit.al, Bojana Zimonjic | EURACTIV.rs – Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos | EURACTIV.com)

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