Several hours after publishing them, Pristina-based media denied their own stories about deployment of Serbian troops to the boundary with Kosovo, Serbian media write today.
Serbia deployed “armed troops to the border with Kosovo,” media in Pristina reported earlier, according to the Beta news agency.
“This is the first time since 2008 and the declaration of independence that Serbia has sent soldiers and Gendarmes so close to the border with Kosovo,” the report continued.
“Regular army and Gendarmerie were deployed yesterday morning close to the border (administrative line) crossing Jarinje with Kosovo in the north of the country,” writes Gazeta Express.
According to Kosovo media, “soldiers are deployed in Rudnica, in close proximity to the border crossing of Jarinje.”
Unnamed sources are quoted as saying that soldiers and Gendarmes control every passenger entering and exiting Kosovo.
These media added that there has been “no official statement from Belgrade about the reasons for the deployment of soldiers.”
“The presence of soldiers and Gendarmes has surprised the border police of Kosovo. The reasons remain unknown,” Kosovo media said earlier in the day.
Tanjug said later on Monday that Kosova Press reported there were several armed soldiers “on the Kosovo-Serbia border” – but it turned out that this was not true, this media said, citing the Gazeta Metro website.
This website has reported, referring to what it learned “in the high circles of the Kosovo police in the north” – that “everything” about members of the Serbian Army being at the administrative line was “fabrication and false information – and there were no Serbian soldiers at Jarinje.”
Kosovo police have not made any statement about the alleged presence of members of the Serbian Army at the crossing of Jarinje, nor have representatives of the provisional Kosovo institutions done so.
In denying the reports, Gazeta Express said that “Serbian soldiers have not been seen at Jarinje since the declaration of Kosovo’s independence.”
It is claimed, however, that on other crossings, such as Bela Zemlja, Serbian soldiers could be seen “at the neutral point of the border.”
