Kurti Surprised KFOR Hasn’t Announced Location Where Kosovo Police Officers Were Abducted

Albin Kurti, Ohrid, March 18 2023 (BETAPHOTO/EMIL VAS)

On June 15, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti demanded the urgent release of the three Kosovo police officers arrested by Serbia and called the act “aggression against Kosovo.”

Following a session of Kosovo’s Security Council, Kurti expressed his surprise that KFOR “has not yet issued an official statement on the location from which the three Kosovo police officers were kidnapped on June 14.”

“That location is clearly within the Republic of Kosovo,” Kurti told a press conference, pointing out a site on the map, deep within Kosovo. “This was not an arrest in Serbia, it was a kidnapping in Kosovo. The officers did not cross the border line as Serbia falsely claims,” Kurti insisted.

“This was an act of aggression against our democratic state. [An act of] revenge on police fighting crime, with the intent of escalating and destabilizing [the situation] after we submitted a five-step plan for de-escalating and normalizing,” Kurti maintained.

The Kosovo prime minister demanded the release of the three “abducted” officers and called on the international community to condemn the move as “Serbian aggression” and exert pressure on official Belgrade. In his opinion, the international community’s silence regarding the incident is “strange.”

The Kosovo Police have accused Serbian forces of abducting three Kosovo police officers in the morning of June 14, while they were patrolling in the Tresave/Bare area, in the municipality of Leposavic, along the administrative line between Serbian and Kosovo. Official Belgrade claims that the incident took place over a kilometer within the territory of central Serbia.