Belgrade wants to return security forces to protect Kosovo Serbs

Serbia will consider the possibility of returning up to a thousand members of its security forces to Kosovo and Metohija in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 1999. Belgrade is ready to take such a measure because of Pristina’s forceful steps in ethnic Serb-populated areas of Kosovo, violating the 2013 Brussels agreements on the status of the Serbian communities of Kosovo. This was announced on the night of December 9 by the director of the office for Kosovo and Metohija (KiM) under the government of Serbia, Petar Petkovic, at an extraordinary press conference. The activity of the Kosovo security forces in Serbian regions increased after the intention to hold early elections there after the Serbs left the institutions of power of the partially recognized state.

Petkovic clarified that on the night of December 9, about 350 Kosovo special forces of the ROSU unit blockaded northern Kosovska Mitrovica (there is actually a Serbian administration autonomous from Pristina, in contrast to the southern part of the city. – Approx. “Vedomosti”), located in parts of the city with ethnic mixed population. “President Aleksandar Vucic has already repeated many times that there will never be pogroms again. It seems to me that those who should reason with Pristina did not understand this well enough in the West,” said the director of the office for Kosmet.

On December 6, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said that police special forces of the partially recognized Kosovo entered the buildings of the municipal election commissions of Zubin Potok and Kosovska Mitrovica and defeated them, hoping to place an election commission loyal to Pristina. But after a clash with Serbian residents, the Kosovo security forces retreated, Vučić explained.

This happened after the leader of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, the chairman of the Serbian List Party, Goran Rakic, announced on November 5 that the Serbs were withdrawing from all institutions of power in the republic. In response, the president of the partially recognized Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, scheduled snap elections for December 18 in the north of the territory: in Leposavić, North Mitrovica (northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica), Zubin Potok and Zvecan.

The political crisis in the Serbian regions of Kosovo was provoked by the decision of Pristina to allow driving through its territory only with local RKS numbers, and not with Serbian ones. Since November 21, Kosovo Serbs have already been fined 150 euros for violating the rule. The transition period, according to Pristina, will last until April 21, 2023, after which the Kosovo police threatened to confiscate cars with Serbian numbers.

On November 22, negotiations between Vučić and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti on the issue of numbers under the auspices of the EU ended in failure. On November 24, however, the parties nevertheless agreed to postpone the issue until 2023. A compromise in the form of Belgrade’s refusal to issue new Serbian numbers to Kosovo Serbs, and Pristina’s refusal to impose sanctions against those who already have them for six months, was reached, including under pressure from the United States.

According to UN Security Council resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999, which concerned the international peacekeeping mission and the settlement of the conflict in Kosovo, after the withdrawal of Serbian (then – Yugoslav. – Approx. “Vedomosti”) troops and the demilitarization of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, a limited contingent of security forces , reporting to Belgrade, could “return to Kosovo to perform functions in accordance with Annex 2”.

The application allowed the presence of Serbian security forces to maintain contact with the international civilian mission and international security forces, ensure the protection of Serbian shrines and serve at key frontier posts.

In 2008, Pristina declared independence, and since then it has been recognized by 100 UN member states out of 193 (51.8%), Kosovo is not a member of the UN.

According to Sergei Glandin, a partner at the NSP law firm and an expert on international law, from a legal point of view, Belgrade may well begin the process of using the 1999 resolution against the background of the fact that Pristina still does not have UN membership. At the same time, the Brussels Serbian-Kosovo Agreement of 2013 on the status of Serbian communities in the north of the partially recognized state is in force, providing for a single semi-autonomous structure of self-government while integrating the Serbian policemen of Mitrovica and other communities into the Kosovo-wide one.

The possibility of Serbian police officers being in ethnically Serb areas, as well as other authorities associated with Belgrade, effectively ended with the 2013 Brussels Accords, recalls Anastasia Maleshevich, a researcher at the Institute of International Studies at MGIMO. According to the expert, the Serbs now have the right to send security forces, since Pristina broke all agreements and sends its special forces to the north. But in this regard, the position of the West will be decisive, the expert believes.

Speaking about the planned re-elections in the Serbian regions of Kosovo, Malesevic notes that Pristina was hardly interested in the withdrawal of Serbs from local structures that took place in November. At one time, the Serbs agreed to participate in them as a compromise and contributed to the legitimization of a partially recognized state, she recalls. Now, the expert continues, Kurti will have to somehow replace these Serbs with his “collaborators”.

Apparently, Malesevic argues, now Pristina has staked on terror in order to squeeze out the remaining Serbs, in response, Belgrade can roll back its concessions on previous agreements, since they are not respected by the other side. After all, the Serbian police, as well as the court and other structures, were parallel structures in the north of Kosovo before the Brussels agreement of 2013 and only then entered the Kosovo institutions. Otherwise, an international protectorate has actually continued to operate there since 1999, within the framework of which KFOR peacekeepers operate.