Increased Police Presence in Northern Kosovo, Vucic Meets with Defense Minister and Chief of General Staff

Kosovo police (Beta/archive/Armenija Zajmi Besevic)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic during the night between Dec. 8 and 9 and in the morning on Dec. 9 held meetings with the defense minister and the Serbian army chief of general staff, after the possibility of deploying up to 1,000 members of Serbian security forces to Kosovo was announced. "During the night and morning with Defense Minister Milos Vucevic and Serbian Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Milan Mojsilovic... No surrender," Vucic said in an Instagram post.

Director of the government's Office for Kosovo and Metohija Petar Petkovic said late on Dec. 8 that Belgrade was mulling over the possibility of sending up to 1,000 members of the national security forces to Kosovo, in line with U.N.  Security Council Resolution 1244 and because of the arrival of several hundred members of the Kosovo police in North Kosovska Mitrovica, in order to "increase their presence" in ethnically mixed environments.

Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti announced an increased police presence after this week's incidents in municipalities in the north, where unidentified individuals attacked municipal electoral officials and Kosovo police with stun grenades and shots fired into the air while they were trying to open the offices of municipal electoral commissions.

Petkovic accused Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti of being behind the provocations and added that "Serbia immediately asked that KFOR and EULEX react," but that Kurti "has had the support of powerful figures from the West the whole time."

Meanwhile, new incidents have been recorded. In North Mitrovica, on Dec. 9, a group of masked individuals attacked a car with journalists of Pristina website Kallxo. The journalists were not injured, and news agency Telegrafi published footage of the incident. During the previous night, a member of the Kosovo police sustained light injuries in the village of Srbovac, in the municipality of Zvecan, when armed individuals attacked the police patrol he was in from an Audi with KM license plates.