Serbia orders the Army to be on high alert due to tensions in Kosovo

MADRID, 27 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Serbian Ministry of Defense has reported on Monday night that the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, has ordered the country's Army to be on 'high alert' after the escalation of tensions in Kosovo.

Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic has indicated that the president, "as commander-in-chief, has ordered tonight that the Serbian Armed Forces be at the highest level of combat readiness."

"In other words, preparation at the level of the use of the Armed Forces," added Vucevic, pointing out the "armed potential" of the Army, in statements to the Tanjug news agency.

Hours earlier, the country's president had stated that his government would take "measures to protect" the Serbs after increasing combat readiness in Pristina.

"We are doing everything possible to preserve peace and stability. Unfortunately, they were not even interested in listening to them," said Vucic, after criticizing that the Kosovo authorities prevented the entry of the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church on Monday.

Serbia asked NATO in mid-December to deploy 1,000 Serbian security forces in Kosovo, an unprecedented request, based on a United Nations resolution; however, Vucic stated that he expected a negative response from the North Atlantic Alliance.

The NATO mission in Kosovo, KFOR, on which these security powers fall, has already increased its presence in the area, especially at the Jarinje pass, on the border with Serbia.

The latest episode in this long-running conflict began in November, when the Kosovo-friendly Srpska Lista (Serbian List) party declared its total and complete resignation from local elections, where the election of mayors for four municipalities in Serb majority.

After several nights of violent incidents that have left at least one Kosovo police officer injured by alleged Serb shots, the situation ended up worsening with the arrest of a Kosovo Serb police officer, one of the resigned officers, which led to the lifting of the population of the area with barricades that paralyzed transit through the territory.

The Kosovar Police decided to temporarily assume control of the Jarinje and Brnjak border crossings while the EU mission in Kosovo, EULEX, denounced having been the victim of an attack with a stun grenade against one of its patrols, fortunately without victims to regret .

The last straw that broke the camel's back was the presentation of Kosovo's application to join the European Union. As of today, five EU member states, including Spain, do not recognize the independence of the former Serbian province, so it is unclear how Pristina's request will be dealt with, a step that normally takes months in the Council and which in this case it could be a more complicated process.