Kosovan minister says Serbia aims to destabilize the country

Kosovan Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said on Tuesday (27 December) that Serbia was trying to destabilize Kosovo through the support of the Serb minority living in the north, who have been protesting and blocking roads for nearly three weeks.

On Tuesday, Serbs in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica, an ethnically divided area, erected new barricades. This was hours after Serbia declared that it had placed its army on the highest combat alert.

Svecla said: "It is precisely Serbia, influenced by Russia, which has raised a status of military readiness and is ordering the erection new barricades in order to justify the protection of criminal groups that terrorize... citizens from Serb ethnicity living within Kosovo."

Serbia denies that it is trying to destabilize the neighbour, saying it only wants to protect its minorities there. Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia's president, said on Tuesday that Serbia will "continue fighting for peace and seeking compromise solutions".

Belgrade said Monday night that, in light of recent events and the belief that Kosovo was planning to attack Serbs and remove the barricades forcefully, it had placed its police and army on high alert.

After the 10 December attack on serving officers by a former Serb officer, Serbs from northern Kosovo have set up multiple roadblocks around Mitrovica.

After the 1998-1999 war, NATO intervened in order to protect ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, an Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence.

Kosovo is not a member state of the United Nations. Five EU countries - Spain Greece, Romania Slovakia, Slovakia, and Cyprus - have refused to recognize Kosovo's independence.

Russia, Serbia's historic ally, blocks Kosovo's accession to the United Nations.

The northern region of Kosovo is home to around 50,000 Serbs. They refuse to recognize the Pristina state or government. They consider Belgrade their capital.

Kosovo's government stated that police were ready and able to act, but they waited for NATO's KFOR Kosovo peacekeeping force to reply to their request to remove the barricades.

Vucic stated that talks were ongoing with diplomats from other countries about how to resolve the crisis.

On Tuesday morning, trucks were parked in Mitrovica to block the road connecting the Serb-majority area of the town with the Albanian-majority section.

The Serbs want the release of the officer in custody and other demands before they remove the barricades.

In protest of a Kosovo government decision last month to replace Serbian-issued plates on cars with Pristina-issued ones, ethnic Serb mayors in northern Kosovan cities and 600 police officers also resigned.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine led the European Union to invest more energy in improving relations with six Balkan countries, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Montenegro and North Macedonia. This despite a continued reluctance of the EU to expand further.

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