MOSCOW, Dec 11 The situation in Kosovo and Metohija may escalate into an armed conflict before the new year, if European structures and the UN do not begin to resolve this issue in the near future, said Elena Guskova, head of the Center for the Study of the Modern Balkan Crisis at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. a request to the command of the NATO KFOR mission on the distribution of the contingent of the Serbian police and army in Kosovo and Metohija.
The expert recalled that the status of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija has not been resolved in any way, and the Serbian leadership cannot even enter this territory without the permission of Pristina. According to UN Security Council resolution 1244, the Serbian police can go there, but no one has ever fulfilled this point. The Serbian leadership made concessions for a long time in the hope that the Albanians would still make it safe for the Serbs to live in Kosovo and Metohija, but the Albanians intend to do everything so that the Serbs completely assimilate or leave, Guskova believes.
“Therefore, Vucic said yesterday that he does not hope that the Serbian police will be allowed to enter the territory, but he considers it necessary to use this right. It seems to me that such applications should have been made a long time ago, because we have been observing tension in Kosovo and Metohija for more than ten years. Today the situation is so complicated that the Serbian leadership has been put in such a situation that they have only one way out — to recognize the independence of Kosovo and Metohija. Belgrade cannot do this in any way. And this issue cannot be passed in the Security Council either, because Russia supports Serbia» , she says.
“Therefore, the situation will escalate, now it is extremely important to prevent an armed clash: both the Serbian army is at the ready, and those NATO members who are inside Kosovo are at the ready, although they do not interfere in the situation. But the fact that the Albanian police have already grown stronger and transformed over the years in fact, to the army, we should not forget either. This can also seriously aggravate the situation and lead to clashes,» the expert said.
This issue needs to be resolved by European structures and the Security Council, Guskova is sure, it is necessary to prevent serious clashes and make concessions to the Serbian population in the north of Kosovo and Metohija. «, — she stressed.
Also, according to Guskova, the armed conflict may become quite real before the new year, if appropriate measures are not taken.
Kosovo Serbs erected barricades on the highways on Saturday north of the region due to the detention by the Kosovo Albanian authorities of the former police officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the self-proclaimed republic, Dejan Pantic. Pantić, who, along with fellow Serbian police officers from Interior Ministry units in the north of the region, resigned in November, was detained on Saturday at the Yarina checkpoint when entering from central Serbia on suspicion of «terrorism».
For the night, the protesters set up tents to keep watch on the barricades. The police of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, for their part, blocked the entrance to the province for cars and pedestrians from central Serbia to the north of the province.