The Serbian minority in Kosovo, which has been blocking roads for almost three weeks, will lift their barricades, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced after a call for de-escalation from Washington and Brussels.
“The barricades are being dismantled, but distrust remains,” Vucic said Wednesday night at a meeting with Kosovo Serb officials near the Kosovo border, according to comments quoted by Serbian state television RTSM.
Kosovo, a former Serbian province, declared independence in 2008, a decade after a deadly war between Serbian forces and Albanian rebels. But Serbia does not recognize it.
Belgrade is encouraging the Serb minority, some 120,000 of Kosovo’s 1.8 million people, to refuse any allegiance to Pristina while the Kosovan authorities seek to establish sovereignty over the entire territory.
Kosovo closed its main border crossing with Serbia on Wednesday after Serbs set up barricades there amid one of the region’s worst crises in recent years.
Several hundred Kosovo Serbs have set up roadblocks in northern Kosovo since December 10 to protest the arrest of a former Serb police officer, which has paralyzed traffic at two border crossings with Serbia.
A court in Pristina on Wednesday ordered the release of ex-policeman Dejan Pantic and his placement under house arrest.
Kosovo police and international peacekeepers have suffered multiple gun attacks as Serbia put its forces on high alert.
The United States and the European Union on Wednesday jointly called for an “unconditional de-escalation” in that region, where Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic last week ruled that the situation was “on the brink of armed conflict.”
“We are working with (Serbian) President Vucic and (Kosovo) Prime Minister Kurti to find a political solution to ease tensions and achieve a breakthrough in the interest of stability, security and well-being, assured in a press release.
On Wednesday, Germany denounced the increase in the Serbian military presence on the border with Kosovo, which Berlin says is sending a “very bad signal”.
For its part, Russia reiterated its support for Belgrade. “We have very close allied, historical and spiritual ties with Serbia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday, adding that Russia is “very closely following what is happening and how Serbs’ rights are being guaranteed.”
“And of course we support Belgrade in its actions,” he stressed.