[1/2] Serbian security forces detain Kosovan police officers at a location near Gnjilica, Serbia. June 14, 2023 in this screenshot from a handout video. MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS SERBIA/via Portal THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALE. NO… Read more
PRISTINA/BELGRADE, June 14 (Portal) – Three Kosovan police officers were arrested by Serbian forces on Wednesday, but officers from Kosovo and Serbia gave different places for the arrest and accused each other of illegally crossing the border.
Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti called for the release of the three officials. He said they were arrested 300 meters on Kosovan territory near the border with Serbia.
“The incursion of Serb forces into the territory of Kosovo is an act of aggression and aims at escalation and destabilization,” Kurti wrote on his Facebook page.
In response to the arrests, Kosovar Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla told reporters that he had ordered officers at border crossings to stop all trucks with Serbian plates and trucks carrying Serbian goods.
But Petar Petkovic, the head of the Serbian government’s office for Kosovo, said the three were arrested “deep inside” Serbian territory.
At a press conference in Belgrade, he said that the arrest took place in the village of Gnjilica, a few kilometers from the border, and that Serbia was ready to accept an international investigation into the arrest.
The arrests could further fuel tensions in the predominantly Serb northern part of Kosovo, which borders Serbia and has seen violence in recent weeks.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after a rebellion by the 90% ethnic Albanian majority against repressive Serb rule.
In 1999, Serbian security forces were driven out of Kosovo by a NATO bombing raid, but Belgrade continues to regard it as a southern province.
Violence erupted last month when 30 peacekeepers and 52 Serbs were injured in clashes in four predominantly Serb communities in northern Kosovo, just outside Serbia.
It erupted after Serbs rose up against Albanian mayors who took office after a local vote that saw a turnout of just 3.5%. The Serbs in the region boycotted the election.
Tuesday’s arrest of a Serb identified by the Kosovo Albanian interior minister as an organizer of attacks on NATO peacekeepers during last month’s unrest sparked further anger in the region, sparking protests on Wednesday.
reporting by Fatos Bytyci, Ivana Sekularac and Aleksandar Vasovic; Adaptation by Frank Jack Daniel, Jonathan Oatis and Angus MacSwan
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.