Serbia to ask NATO to deploy Serb military, police in Kosovo

Serbia intends to request NATO peacekeepers for permission to deploy the Serbian military and police to the volatile northern part of the self-proclaimed Kosovo republic, although it believes there is no chance of the request being approved, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said.

As Al Jazeera reported, Vucic told a news conference on December 10 in Belgrade that he would make the request to deploy Serbian forces in a letter to the commander of NATO’s KFOR (Kosovo Force) mission, the alliance’s peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

“We will request from the KFOR commander to ensure the deployment of army and police personnel of the Republic of Serbia to the territory of Kosovo and Metohija,” Vucic said, adding, however, that he had “no illusions” that the request would be accepted.

The remarks came after a series of incidents and growing tension between Kosovo authorities and Kosovo Serbs who constitute a majority in northern areas of Kosovo.

On December 10, Kosovo Serbs exchanged gunfire with police officers in the volatile north, and Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani announced the delay of the local elections until next year, which were scheduled to take place on December 18. 

According to the publication, gunfire broke out after Serbs blocked main roads in the northern region to protest against the arrest of a former member of the Kosovo police who quit his post last month along with other ethnic Serb officials.

Caliber.Az recalls that the two sides met with the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on November 21 in emergency talks held between Kosovo and Serbia, which failed to resolve their long-running dispute over car license plates used by the ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s office called Serbia's move, if realized, “an act of aggression” and an indication of “Serbia’s tendencies to destabilize the region”.

The publication notes to the mass resignation of Serb mayors in northern Kosovo municipalities, along with local judges and some 600 police officers in November in protest over a government decision to replace Belgrade-issued car license plates with ones issued by Pristina.