Serbian Army on standby amid Kosovo tensions – Belgrade

 

Serbian howitzers near the administrative border with Kosovo, December 26, 2022. © Serbian Defense Ministry Press Service / AP

Source: RT

The armed forces are ready to protect Serbs living in the country’s breakaway region, Defense Minister Milos Vucevic has said

Serbia has placed its army and police on high alert amid a tense standoff between Belgrade and the breakaway region of Kosovo. Officials say armed personnel are ready to intervene to defend the local Serb population.

“The president of Serbia, as the commander-in-chief, has ordered tonight that the Serbian Armed Forces be at the highest level of combat readiness, meaning the preparedness to use their armed potential,” Defense Minister Milos Vucevic told Tanjug news agency on Monday. He added that the government would ensure that “all measures are taken to protect the Serbian people in Kosovo.”

Kosovo is predominantly populated by ethnic Albanians, but has a Serb majority in its northern areas. Serbia pulled its troops from Kosovo in 1999 after NATO intervened in support of a local Albanian armed insurgency, bombing Belgrade and other Serbian cities. NATO peacekeepers have since been deployed to the region, which ultimately declared independence from Belgrade in 2008. Serbia still considers Kosovo to be part of its own territory.

Tensions have been brewing in recent months as the Kosovo authorities demanded that the Serbian community only use Kosovo-issued license plates instead of those issued by Belgrade. The situation deteriorated further this month when local Serbs erected roadblocks to protest the arrest of a former police officer accused of attacking municipal election commission offices.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti has called for the barricades to be taken down.

Belgrade asked the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force to allow the deployment of Serbian military and police to Kosovo. According to UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which formalized the end of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, Belgrade can send up to 1,000 personnel to protect the Serb-populated areas and border crossings if the request is approved by the leader of the peacekeeping force.
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Northern Kosovo Serbs go ahead with referendum on Pristina

Hard-line ethnic Albanian protesters of the nationalist Self-Determination Movement protest near Podujevo, a town in northern Kosovo on January 22, 2012.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/226503.html

Serbs in northern Kosovo are going ahead with a referendum this week, in which citizens voice their opinion as to whether they accept the institutions of the so-called Republic of Kosovo.

On Monday, Serb leaders in northern Kosovo said they will hold the referendum despite opposition from Pristina, the international community and even Belgrade.

“The referendum will be held Tuesday and Wednesday. ... We printed 35,000 ballots," a member of the electoral commission that is organising the vote, Ljubomir Radovic said.

Residents of the Serb-dominated north oppose Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and believe the referendum will underscore their opposition to concessions that Belgrade has made to the ethnic Albanian government in Pristina during EU-brokered talks.

Voters will be asked whether they “accept the institutions of the so-called Republic of Kosovo seated in Pristina”.

However, the Serbian government does not support the move, even though Belgrade also opposes Kosovo independence. Serbian officials fear the referendum may damage Serbia’s European Union membership bid.

“The referendum ... cannot help solve the crisis," Serbian President Boris Tadic said.

The Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs reject Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence, recognized by Western powers, and regard the region as a part of greater Serbia.

The European Union (EU) leaders have delayed Serbia's bid to become a formal candidate for membership in the EU until March 2012, at the earliest. The decision was made due to Serbia's fraught relations with Kosovo.

Mladic taken to UN prison in the Hague

Ratko Mladic (middle)

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/182643.html

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army chief, has arrived in the Netherlands to be tried for genocide after Serbia's war crimes court rejected his extradition appeal against his transfer to a UN tribunal in The Hague.

A Republic of Serbia plane landed at Rotterdam airport at 1745 GMT on Tuesday, and a Dutch police helicopter took Mladic to the UN detention unit in The Hague, the seat of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), AFP reported.

Earlier on Tuesday, a Belgrade war crimes court rejected the Bosnian Serb wartime general's extradition appeal, in which he claimed he was too ill to be deported, and ruled that Mladic was fit enough to be handed over to the UN's ICTY in The Hague.

The prosecution has charged Mladic with genocide, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation, inhumane acts, and cruel treatment for his part in a plot to achieve the "elimination or permanent removal" of Muslims from large parts of Bosnia in pursuit of a "Greater Serbia."

He is accused of masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of between 7,500 and 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

He is also charged for his rule in the April 1992-February 1996 siege of Sarajevo, in which 10,000 civilians died.

Mladic's son Darko has said his father had told him he was not responsible for the killings in Srebrenica, committed after his troops overran the town in July 1995.

On Sunday in Belgrade, the ultra nationalist Radical Party of Serbia held a rally against the arrest of Mladic, during which about 100 people were arrested after clashes with the police.

On Thursday, Serbian authorities announced that Mladic, 69, was arrested in a relative's house in the village of Lazarevo, located about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Belgrade.

Mladic had been in hiding for about 16 years.

Serbia one step closer to EU membership

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161821.html


Although some issues are still to be solved, such as reinforcing Belgrade's full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, this is a positive step on the path to EU membership.

Full cooperation with the International Crime Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and reintegration of refugees returning to Serbia from EU countries are only some issues MEPs would like to see resolved.

The executive director of Group 484, an organization that deals with refugee issues and the internally displaced says he believes it is necessary for Serbia to solve the refugee problems even though it might take some time.

Vladimir Pavlovic believes a stronger political will is essential if Serbia is to lift the existing barrier in the way of EU integration.

Pavlovic said he is optimistic about Serbia becoming a full EU member state but refused to speculate as to when the accession will take place.

According to Serbia's Foreign Minister, the diplomatic relations between Balkan countries are probably at their best since the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis, but there is still much work to be done, much more to be reformed, before Serbia can wave the EU flag.

'Kosovo did not violate intl. law'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=135838&sectionid=351020606


The International Court of Justice (ICJ), UN's highest court, has ruled that the Kosovo independence from Serbia did not violate international law.

"The declaration of February 17, 2008 did not violate general international law," AFP quoted ICJ president Hisashi Owada as saying on Thursday.

The ICJ nonbinding, advisory ruling further said that international law contains no "prohibition on declarations of independence," the Associated Press reports.

Analysts believe that the ruling can have significant implications for other separatist regions around the globe.

Belgrade warned that conclusions should be drawn only after a "careful analysis" of the court's text.

Serbia had said earlier that it would not retreat from its stance on Kosovo, cautioning that if the ICJ supported Kosovo, all the world's borders would be at risk.

"Serbia will not change its position regarding Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence and necessity of a compromise," Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said earlier.

"Our fight for such a solution will probably be long and difficult, but we will not give up," he added.

Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia sparked a serious worldwide debate following a 1998-99 war and nearly a decade of international administration.

Following a request by Serbia, the UN General assembly asked the ICJ in October 2008 to rule whether the breakaway breached international law.

Sixty nine countries, including the United States and most European Union nations, recognized Kosovo's statehood, while Serbia and Russia and some other countries condemned it.