The creation of the Kosovo Armed Forces (KAF) would mean annulment of the Kumanovo Agreement and the Resolution, according to the Office for KiM.
All the most important elements concerning the Serbian community in Kosovo have already been agreed, including the work of the Kosovo army. Until signing of the legally-binding agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, it will not have a base, nor will operate in northern Kosovo, and after that, for this part of Kosovo a special arrangement would be applied, similar to the system agreed in Brussels for the police – says political analyst Dusan Janjic, on the Draft Law on the Kosovo Armed Forces, which should soon be found before Kosovo government.
According to Janjic words, future Kosovo defense ministry and army together will have 5,000 members, including about 1,200 specially armed soldiers in combat troops. Janjic assessed that the Kosovo government will not enter with the draft law on the armed forces into parliamentary procedure until a “voting machine” for the necessary amendment of the Constitution of Kosovo is not provided. For that it needs a two-thirds majority of not only, all MPs, but also representatives of minority communities, which is not possible without the return of the Serbian List into the Kosovo institutions.
Serbian list left the Assembly of Kosovo due to the dismissal of the Minister for Communities and Returns, Aleksandar Jablanovic. The question of Danas is whether some kind of “trade” can be expected – Serbian votes for the law on the army for Kosovo for the concessions regarding the competence of the Association/Community of Serbian municipalities (ZSO), Janjic replied that it would be a “good job”, but fears that the “trade” would be for ministerial positions and the return of the Serbian List into the Kosovo government. He says that Pristina will be looking to “go as cheap as possible” and that it was “easier to trade for Jablanovic than the ZSO.”
Under which circumstances the Serbian list will return into the Kosovo institutions will be decided, as announced a month ago, at a meeting with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. The date of this event until yesterday was not known. After the signing of the Brussels Treaty in April 2013, the highest Serbian government officials have repeatedly publicly claimed to have “verbal guarantees of NATO that armed forces of Kosovo shall not exceed the Ibar River in northern Kosovo.”
The Office for Kosovo and Metohija yesterday declined to comment on “arrangements with NATO” and speculation about a possible “trade” with Pristina. The Office told Danas that “the establishment of the Kosovo army would be contrary to the Kumanovo Agreement and the UNSC Resolution 1244 and that the existence of the security forces or armed forces represents “dodgery” of the agreement which supposed to disarm the KLA”. Interviewees warn that “the KLA was disarmed only on paper; it just changed labels on the uniforms and became the Kosovo Protection Corps, then the Kosovo Security Force, which now wants to be called the Kosovo armed forces.”
– Bearing in mind that NATO wants to improve the image in Serbia outside of Kosovo and Metohija, and wants Serbia among its members, I doubt that it supports the creation of an army of Kosovo, which would be dangerous and for Serbs and for the entire region. I do not expect that the leadership of Serbia will make the Serbian representatives in the Kosovo Parliament to vote for the army of Kosovo. This would mean cancellation of the Kumanovo Agreement, binding international agreement between NATO and Serbia – told Danas Rada Trajkovic, from the European Movement of Serbs in Kosovo.
She considers that, in the event that Kosovo gets armed forces in them should be, in accordance with the Kumanovo Agreement, “999 police and Army officers of Serbia, because among Kosovo Serbs there are no appropriate professional staff, especially because whole military command will be in the Albanian language “.
