Tensions between Belgrade and Pristina are rising once again after the arrest of three ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and Serbian President Aleksander Vucic saying he will visit the country without permission, with Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla saying he will be arrested if he does.
On Wednesday, three Serbs were arrested by Kosovo police on suspicion of war crimes against civilians during the 1998-1999 Kosovo-Serbia war. The Special Prosecution announced that the three men would be remanded in custody for 48 hours while the investigation continues.
Vucic demanded the international community’s intervention during a US visit.
“We invite all international representatives to react, to do everything in their power so that Serbs can survive on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija so that people who are not guilty of doing anything to anyone are released to their homes,” Vucic said.
The three suspects, who are now in their 70s, were arrested in Mitrovica, Zvecan and Vushtrri.
“Today’s arrests, brutal arrests… by the Kosovo police are carried out exclusively on the orders of [Kosovo Prime Minister] Albin Kurti, who wants to expel the Serbian people from Kosovo and Metohija,” said Petar Petkovic, head of the Serbian government’s office for Kosovo.
In June, Serbian authorities arrested and detained three Kosovo police officers from within Kosovo’s territory, leading to calls for help from Pristina but a somewhat lacklustre response from the international community, which simply called on Belgrade to release them.
The officers were finally released and returned home across the border.
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His accusations of ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo come days after the publication of research on the administrative ethnic cleansing of Albanians from the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia.
Ethnic Albanians in the southern Serbian municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovic, and Medvegja have been illegally and systemically removed from the Serbian civil registry to over 6,000 citizens over the last few years. This has removed the right of Albanians to vote, access healthcare and education, buy and sell property and benefit from state services.
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The research, conducted by Flora Ferati Sachesenmaier and including official documents, voter lists and testimonials, has reached the US Secretary of State and the European Parliament.
The latest dispute comes amid another issue- that of a possible visit of Vucic to Kosovo. Vucic said if he had “democratic permission”, he would visit the southern ethnic-Serb majority town of Gračnica and then travel to Pristina, the capital. He stressed he would not ask Kurti for permission to enter the country despite it being required by law.
Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla reacted by saying he would be arrested if he did not seek permission through the proper legal channels.
“How do you think that someone, a foreign citizen, can enter the Republic of Kosovo without the permission of the Kosovo institutions? What are the consequences? The consequence is that you simply don’t have a state if the head of another state enters your territory without permission.”
Svecla added that Vucic must ask Kurti for permission, and if he does not, he will have to deal with the Interior Ministry.
“I don’t believe that Vucic is so crazy as to come to Kosovo without permission”, he added.
Over the summer, Vucic’s son Danilo was detained in Kosovo after visiting a festival in Gracanica and wearing a t-shirt with “surrender is not an option” written on it, widely considered an anti-Kosovo sentiment considering the context.
(Alice Taylor | Euractiv.com)
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