Tensions between the authorities and the Serb minority have recently increased in northern Kosovo. The government in Serbia says it wants to counteract this and send soldiers to the neighboring country. A corresponding application to NATO has little chance of success.
The Serbian military has applied to the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR for permission to enter Kosovo with 1,000 men. A Serbian army delegation handed over a corresponding letter to KFOR officers at the Serbian-Kosovar border crossing at Merdare, as Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic announced.
US diplomats had already stated in advance that such a permit would not be granted. Nevertheless, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced on Thursday evening on the state television channel RTS that he would apply for it. It is clear to him that KFOR will not approve this application, he said. However, the deployment of Serb troops would “reduce ethnic tensions” in Kosovo.
Vucic referred to a 1999 UN Security Council resolution that mentions the presence of Serb security forces in Kosovo as a possibility. However, this would be limited to a narrow mandate and strictly dependent on the approval of KFOR. In principle, the peacekeeping force can authorize several hundred Serbian security forces in Kosovo – but only for a few activities such as protecting religious sites or joint border surveillance. General security tasks, for example in Serbian settlement areas, are excluded.
Kosovo was part of Serbia until 1999. After a NATO intervention, it first came under the administration of the UN mission Unmik. In 2008 it declared itself independent. To this day, KFOR ensures the country’s military security. The leadership in Belgrade does not recognize the statehood of its former province. Ethnic Serbs, who live in a compact settlement area in northern Kosovo, have recently been instrumentalized again to fuel tensions.
On Thursday, Kosovo submitted an application to join the European Union – above all a symbolic act, because five EU countries also do not accept Kosovo as an independent state. Formally, the country only has a “perspective of joining the EU”. Serbia has been an official candidate country since 2012.
