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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic holds a news conference September 24 after gunmen attacked and killed a Kosovo police officer.
CNN –
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said Monday that Washington’s reports last week warning of a large buildup of Serbian troops on the border with Kosovo were “not entirely accurate.”
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Vučić said: “We have always appreciated all the reports that came from the NSC (the National Security Council), the White House and all other institutions from the United States.” But the real problem is that this Reports were not entirely accurate.”
The White House expressed concern last week, warning of an “unprecedented” buildup of advanced Serbian artillery, tanks and mechanized infantry units near the border with Kosovo and calling for “immediate de-escalation.”
“A year ago we still had 14,000 people on the administrative border with Kosovo. A few days ago we had less than 8,400. Today there are 4,400, which is a normal number,” said Vučić.
“We have always listened, and we have always listened when our partners asked us to de-escalate a situation, and this time we did it, even though there was no cause for great concern, because we didn’t need wars, any kind of clashes with NATO,” he added.
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Soldiers from the NATO-led international peacekeeping force Kosovo Force in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo on September 28.
When asked why the Serbian government had moved more troops to the border, Vučić said that the Serbian army “is monitoring the situation on the ground and moving our forces in a way that they think is most useful, and they have their own Operations.” and everything else except that I didn’t even sign a high alert for our army people.”
Long-troubled relations between Serbia and neighboring Kosovo flared in late September when 30 gunmen opened fire on a Kosovar police patrol in the northern Kosovo village of Banjska and then barricaded themselves in an Orthodox monastery. A Kosovar police officer and three gunmen were killed in the hours-long shootout that followed.
Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani pointed the finger at Belgrade for inciting the violence.
As Portal reported, Milan Radoicic, a top Kosovo Serb politician, said this weekend that he took part in the shooting.
In a letter sent to Portal by his lawyer, Radoicic, who is wanted in Kosovo and lives in neighboring Serbia, said he had “personally prepared the logistics for the defense of the Serbian people” and received no help from Serbian authorities. Radoicic is under US sanctions over suspected ties to organized crime.
Asked whether Radoicic will face the responsibility demanded by the European Union, the Serbian president said: “Of course Serbia will hold accountable all people who have committed criminal acts and who we might encounter on our territory… Prosecutors will do their job but said that the problem began with the Serbs wanting to “protect themselves”.
“I will not defend the murder of an Albanian police officer and I have not done so. I condemned that. But I say that the Serbs were arrested without charge, house searches, evictions, expropriations, everything that was not in line with a Brussels agreement,” he added.
The clash was one of the worst since Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after a NATO bombing campaign drove Serbian forces responsible for the brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo, leading to the end of the conflict war of 1998–99.
More than 20 years after the war, a fragile peace reigns in Kosovo, while Serbia continues to view the country as a breakaway state and does not recognize its independence. The Serbs in Kosovo see themselves as part of Serbia and consider Belgrade, not Pristina, as their capital.
The confrontation came months after ethnic Serbs attacked dozens of NATO peacekeepers in the northern Kosovo town of Zvecan in May. The clashes came after Serbian protesters tried to prevent newly elected Albanian mayors from taking office following a disputed election in April.
Western leaders quickly condemned the violence and called on both parties to ease tensions. The violence has heightened tensions in the Balkan region as EU and US mediators try to finalize years-long talks to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo.
Asked for his thoughts on Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic leaving a political message on a television camera lens at the French Open in May in response to the violent clashes in Kosovo, the president said he believed Djokovic expressed his feelings “from below” “expressed his heart,” but stressed that Serbian politicians must deal with the situation “pragmatically.”
After his first-round win over American Aleksandar Kovacevic, Djokovic wrote: “Kosovo is this [heart] of Serbia. “Stop the violence” in Serbian on a camera lens with a heart symbol.
“I think Novak Djokovic said something from the bottom of his heart. 99% of Serbs believe in it, but I can tell you one thing: we politicians have to be pragmatic and rational, which means we have to find solutions through a negotiation process and a constructive approach,” said the Serbian leader.