EUobserver warning: Serbia could invade Kosovo

Serbia, supported by a false news campaign, has accused Kosovo of planning ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs, promoting bad memories of Balkan wars.

“I hope that we will never have to use our army, but at the moment it is one of the options on the table, because we cannot see a new ethnic cleansing ( Serbs) and new storms”, Serbia's chief minister, Anna Brnabiq, announced yesterday in Belgrade, broadcasts voice.info

Operation “Storm” was the name of the last battle in Croatia's 1995 independence fight, which led to the forced expulsion of over 150,000 ethnic Serbs.

Brnabyq was approved for Kosovo's plan to renamed “Kosovo Security Force”, by a lightly armed body with 4,000 members, to the “Kosovo Army” following an initial vote in parliament on 14 December.

The 15-December army will move to subdue people only because they are Serbs”, she added, referring to a Serb enclave in northern Kosovo, which remains de facto under Serbian rule.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq also poured fuel into the fire, saying: “Serbia cannot look peacefully at the destruction of the Serbian people”.

False News

Their statements were accompanied by false news in the state-controlled Serbian media.

“The CIA sends a ship loaded with weapons” that will be “split south of Mitrovica”, a Serbian photoide thus wrote Wednesday, referring to an American spy agency and a Kosovo region attached to the Serb enclave.

“The unprecedented fraud ... incredible lies, all”, said Petrit Selimi, former Kosovo foreign minister.

We will not create the army for the north, it is a pure lie. Our army will serve in Afghanistan and Iraq (with NATO) to help world peace”, Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj also said.

The Serbian propaganda echoed Russia's in the Western Balkans, where Russian media in the Serbian language have put forth years of Kosovo-American conspiracy theories in an effort to destabilise the region and curb EU and NATO enlargement.

The Russian foreign ministry also reacted Wednesday.

“We expect international forces for Kosovo ( KFOR ... in the event of showing such a structure (Kosovo Army), immediately take comprehensive measures to neutralise and disarm it”, said official Moscow.

KFOR is a NATO peacekeeping force with 4,000 soldiers, deployed in Kosovo in 1999, following the end of the Serbia-Kosovo war, one of the bloodiest in the region.

Part of his mandate is to prevent the hostility and renewed threats against Kosovo by Serbian forces”, which means that if Brnabiqi fulfills its threat, then Serbian forces can clash with NATO forces.

Tension

A tense situation comes amid Kosovo-Serbia talks to normalise relations and join the EU.

The EU ambassadors agreed to open two “caping” new ones in Serbia's accession talks as well Wednesday.

But negotiations on normalising ties are at risk for a proposal to exchange the main ethnic Serb enclave in Kosovo for Albanian in Serbia.

The idea, backed by Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, but rejected by Haradinaj, has caused unrest in Kosovo's politics, the voice-info conveys

It has also prompted a split among Western defenders of the US region and EU institutions have supported the idea, but Germany has warned that changing borders on ethnic lines could destabilise the Western Balkans.

NATO Alarm

For his part, the head of NATO Jens Stoltenberg urged Belgrade and Pristina on Wednesday “to refrain from steps and provocative statements”.

However, he also criticised Kosovo.

Such a step [Kosovo Army] is coming at a wrong time”, he said in Brussels.

“What they have announced is now happening without consulting NATO allies and other countries, as well as without a comprehensive process in Kosovo itself”, he said.

KFOR will have to review its level of engagement in Kosovo” if Pristina has moved ahead, he added.

The army issue comes after Haradinaj imposed 100 per cent tariffs on Serbian goods imports, costing Serbia 42m euros a month in losses, according to Belgrade's estimate.

He did so when Serbia blocked Kosovo's bid to join the international police agency, Interpol, last month.

The EU and NATO have urged him to step down as Stoltenberg said Wednesday that it made the dialogue “even more difficult”.

But Albania expressed solidarity with the neighbouring ethnic Albanian majority on the same day.

“in these abnormal tax conditions should be seen as a call of a political rather than a trade war”, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said during a visit to Croatia.