KSF invites Serbs to join military transformation process

About 100 KSF members from the Serb community had abandoned this force after, as some of them had stated, pressures that had been exerted on them by Serbian authorities in Belgrade.

However, Kosovo Security Force Minister Rrustem Berisha says he has interest in young Serbs to be part of the Kosovo Army. According to him, for the current process of transforming the KSF this issue is not a problem.

And we as KSF, and I as my minister and staff, are very devoted to meeting these countries as soon as we can open the competition for completion of jobs by the non-competitive community, actually from the Serb community”.

I am sorry that they have made such a decision without their will and will, but with external influences. I think that with the KSF transition decision, Serbs will no longer have the pressure to issue the Kosovo Security Force”, Berisha says.

He also points out that, currently in the Kosovo Assembly, three bills dealing with the transformation of the KSF are expected to be reviewed and adopted. It's the Kosovo Security Force Law, the Ministerial Law in the Kosovo Security Force and the Law for the transfer of the Ministry of Security to the Ministry of Defence.

The official Belgrade political stance is that it does not support the creation of the Kosovo Army. In that line, there is also the position of the Serbian List, which is represented by 10 deputies in the Kosovo Assembly.

Some of the former KSF members from the Serb community had told him The REL is referring to a collective decision by Serb KSF members on this side to abandon this force, so, according to him, he too could not decide otherwise.

Everybody abandoned him, so did I. At the border, we are not allowed to cross into Serbia, so we had to do this”, one of the Serb members who had decided to abandon the KSF said under anonymity.

For now, according to him, the ministry will develop several activities aimed at explaining that transformation of the Security Force is in the interest of all Kosovo communities and citizens.

The “in this direction will also discuss the benefits of the Serbian community, because, of course, increasing the number of KSF members will have no majority community growth. It's a 10-year transformation plan where activities are envisioned in phases: the first phase is 1 to 3 years, the second phase 3 to 6 and the third to 7 to 10. But it does not mean that these phases should last at this 10-year term”, Berisha explains.

The recogniser of military and security issues, former Kosovo Security Forces Commander Kadri Kastrati, considers that the transformation process cannot have any impact if a percentage of the Serb community has emerged from this force.

I am strongly convinced that with the passage of these laws and the taking of the way towards the establishment of military capacities, Serbia will realise that this is a job done and that the pressure that has been earlier on members of the Serb community will be reduced. And, I am very convinced that in the future there will be even more interested Serbs to join this” force, Kastrati estimates.

He says the Kosovo Security Force will be the force for stability in the country and the region.

The “Serbs, who meet the standards of a soldier, an officer, or a deputy officer, could be part of this military structure. Kosovo is an independent state, sovereign state, has the right to have its own military force. This will be the interest of NATO, the interest of the region “, Kastrati points out.

The process of establishing the Armed Forces or the Kosovo Army has so far been blocked because of the lack of support from Serb deputies in the Kosovo Assembly.

The formation of the Kosovo Armed Forces is expected to be introduced in the Assembly by the Government, through the draft law defining the necessary legal changes.

Armed forces, Kosovo Government officials have said, will be founded under NATO supervision, with a specific number of soldiers and weapons and equipment defined in agreements with NATO.