Northern Kosovo Serbs Reject KFOR Call for Roadblock Removal

Jarinje border crossing | Photo by FoNet

Dobrosav Dobric, President of the assembly of the Zvecan municipality in the predominantly Serb-populated northern Kosovo, told Balkan Insight that Kosovo Serbs will not accept KFOR's request, made yesterday, to remove barricades over the weekend.

"The cause of [building] the barricades should be removed first," he said.

Dobric's associate from the Serb municipality of Zubin Potok, Srdjan Djurovic, has also rejected the possibility the request, which would enable freedom of movement of vehicles between Kosovo and Serbia.

"We can remove all the barricades in [a] couple [of] hours but only after Kosovo officials withdraw from administrative border crossing," Djurovic told Balkan Insight.

But, the government in Pristina says that it will not bend to these conditions.

It expects from the international actors, KFOR and EULEX, to react the same way, and has called upon them to move on with the removal of the barricades in the north.

Bajram Rexhepi, the Interior Minister, told Balkan Insight that Kosovo’s government doesn’t accept any conditions set by the parallel structures in the north.

“The problem is that EULEX is doing nothing. While as for KFOR, it needs to act and plan very prudently for such an action to remove the barricades. This situation can’t last forever, because the expenses KFOR has for its soldiers in the north are quite high,” the Interior Minister said.

NATO’s peacekeeping troops said earlier that the Serbs living in the north have shown signs that they intend to remove the roadblocks themselves in a “non-confrontation manner”. KFOR mentioned this weekend as a sort of deadline for the removal, and called upon the local population to “seize the opportunity.”

The message was passed to four municipality representatives in the north- Zvecan, Leposavic, Zubin Potok and Mitrovica.

The Commander of KFOR’s forces in the north, Colonel Hansjöarg Conrad, who met the politicians, said that the impact of roadblocks on KFOR operations was a challenge to meeting logistical requirements of the soldiers. He clarified that soldiers at the Gates needed to be supplied in order to conduct their mission.

For the past two and a half months there has been ongoing tension, coupled with occasional outbursts of violence in northern Kosovo. Local Serbs have been holding 16 barricades, blocking the main access roads to the two border crossings, Jarinje and Brnjak.

The border crossings act as a gateway between Kosovo and Serbia.