Albanian Language Media:

• Kosovo Police arrest suspect of violence against KFOR (media)
• Svecla: 15-20 persons beat up two Albanian youths in the north last night (media)
• Kurti: De-escalation, new elections and full implementation of Basic Agreement (media)
• Kosovo institutions don’t know how shock bombs are entering the north (RFE)
• Rama: Without return of three policemen, tensions in north cannot be defused (RFE)
• Kurti: We need help Vatican’s help to promote peace in unsettling times (media)
• Kurti: Serbia must recognise Kosovo; I am not stubborn, I am principled (media)
• Maliqi: Kurti no longer has credibility to set conditions in dialogue (Gazeta Blic)
• Surroi compares Serbian List to Dodik (Nacionale) 

Serbian Language Media: 

• Arrest in North Mitrovica; KP: Arrested Serb suspected of attack on members of KFOR (Kosovo Online)
• Office for KiM: New arrest just a day after the dialogue an indication that Kurti wants new crises (gracanicaonline.info)
• Serbian List: Unfounded and arbitrary arrests as a method of persecution (KiM radio)
• We want peace, freedom and harmony, message from protest in Gracanica (KiM radio)
• Protests continue in the north, trucks with Serbian goods still at the crossings (KiM radio, Radio Mitrovica sever)
• Borrell to submit report on Belgrade-Pristina dialogue to the heads of EU diplomacy on Monday (Kosovo Online)
• Joseph in Zvecan: It is important to hear the views of Kosovo (Kosovo Online, Twitter)
• DW: The German government seeking an explanation for Gasic’s accusations (KiM radio)

Albanian Language Media  

Kosovo Police arrest suspect of violence against KFOR (media)

Citing a press release issued by Kosovo Police, all news websites report that police have arrested today a Kosovo Serb suspected of being involved in the violence against KFOR peacekeeping troops on May 29 in the north of Kosovo. The police statement notes: “as a result of intensive work and investigations by Kosovo Police, today was arrested a Serb male suspect, N.O., residing in Mitrovica North, also known as ‘Nemac’ and ‘Russian’, suspected of being involved in a case of attack and endangering persons under international protection – KFOR. His arrest and sending to the police station was done after evidence was secured that the same person was involved in an attack against KFOR on May 29, 2023, when as a result of assaults and violence, dozens of KFOR members suffered injuries. All further actions will be undertaken in cooperation and coordination with judicial bodies. Kosovo Police will continue its engagement and committed to safeguard order and public security, rule of law, and to bring before judicial bodies persons suspected of being against law and order”.

Video of the arrest: https://t.ly/u-mM

Svecla: 15-20 persons beat up two Albanian youths in the north last night (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Interior Affairs, Xhelal Svecla, said today that “everyone must answer for their crimes. We will not stop in our fight against all gangs that aim to cause terror against our citizens and destabilise our country”.

Svecla wrote in a Facebook post: “criminal gangs in the north of the country, for years, have caused terror against our citizens through their different criminal acts. Our citizens, especially Albanians, were expelled from their homes, those that stayed were beaten, mistreated and terrorised repeatedly by these criminal groups. Many of them left there precisely because of the terror that was carried out systematically by criminal structures ordered by Belgrade. The same acts were committed against our Serb citizens who have recognised and cooperated with our institutions.”

“Last evening, 15 to 20 persons beat up two Albanian youths. This act, as any other, is unacceptable and our authorities are engaged to bring the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible.”

“Meanwhile, Kosovo Police today arrested Nenad Orlovic, also known as ‘Nemac’ and ‘Russian’, who is suspected of the attack against KFOR on May 29 in Zvecan, which resulted in many wounded soldiers. The impunity and amnesty for these criminals through the years has resulted in brutal attacks against KFOR which resulted in over 30 wounded members. Everyone that has organised and was part of these attacks will be brought to justice,” Svecla also said.

Kurti: De-escalation, new elections and full implementation of Basic Agreement (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said in a Twitter post today that on Thursday he met EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell and EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak “but without Serbia’s president, who refused to take part”. “I gave evidence on the abduction of our 3 policemen—held for over a week now—and discussed de-escalation, new elections, and full implementation of the Basic Agreement,” Kurti tweeted.

Kosovo institutions don’t know how shock bombs are entering the north (RFE)

Kosovo Police do not know how explosive devices, which are believed to be used in attacks against its station in the northern municipalities, are entering Kosovo. In the last couple of weeks, in the north of Kosovo, several incidents occurred, and devices believed to have been shock bombs were used.

On June 22, there were two explosions in Mitrovica North and Kosovo Police deputy director for the north, Veton Elshani, said they could have been shock bombs.

Kosovo Police in its official statements did not give any information about the origin of these explosive devices and said the cases were under investigation.

Former Kosovo Police Director, Rashit Qalaj, told Radio Free Europe that the explosive devices illegally entered Kosovo through different mountain routes. “There is no doubt that they were brought to Kosovo illegally, through alternative routes, in the north. It is very easy to get them in because controlling the terrain in that part is difficult,” he argued. “In addition to ongoing smuggling, certain individuals and groups of organised crime, in cooperation with Serbian forces, get these devices in, and they cause concern among the citizens and especially for security mechanisms”.

Qalaj said that there are problems with the rule of law in the north and that with the current situation, controlling the borderline with Serbia has become increasingly difficult. 

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said in a Twitter post on June 7 that hand grenades and shock bombs manufactured and brought from Serbia were used on May 29 in the northern municipalities.

Security experts highlight the great risk from the explosive devices that enter the north illegally and about the large number of illegal weapons. Professor of security sciences in Kosovo, Avni Islami, said that as a result of these weapons and other explosive devices in the northern municipalities, security in that part of Kosovo is fragile and violence can break out anytime. “Kosovo’s attempts to extend sovereignty and maintain public order and calmness in the north, are running into an aggressive resistance from the criminal groups there, who use different weapons that enter illegally,” he said.

Rama: Without return of three policemen, tensions in north cannot be defused (RFE)

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama called today for the unconditional release of three Kosovo police officers who were arrested by Serbian forces, saying that their detention is “hostage keeping” and criticised Serbia’s position. “Their detention is unjustifiable and the effort to cover the detention of three foreign police officers, by raising the vice about the arrest of some Serb nationals by Kosovo Police is highly concerning,” he said. Rama said that “democratic countries never respond in symmetrical fashion to arrests that they believe are arbitrary” and added that Serbia must cooperate with KFOR about its claims about the arrests of Serbs in Kosovo. Rama said he was certain that “without those three men returning home, there is no room for the de-escalation plan”.

Rama also said he has sent another letter to the leaders of the European Union – French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the President of the EU Council, Charles Michel – asking them to implement the French-German plan. He said that otherwise there is a threat “of an armed conflict between groups that operate in the north of Kosovo and security forces” which he argued “would be only in the interest of Russia”.

Rama also called for a meeting between Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. “The two leaders must meet under the care and pressure of the godfathers of the accorded plan and have no right to leave until the conversation is over, and until all points which no one opposes but at the same time each party blames the other for not implementing, are addressed,” he said.

Kurti: We need help Vatican’s help to promote peace in unsettling times (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said in a Twitter post on Thursday that he met “with His Holiness Pope Francis this morning”. “We discussed Kosova’s youth, Mother Teresa, and the importance of service to others & a thriving multi-religious society. I reiterated that our country needs the Vatican’s help to promote peace in unsettling times,” Kurti tweeted.

Kurti: Serbia must recognise Kosovo; I am not stubborn, I am principled (media)

Several news websites cover an interview that Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti gave to Suddeutsche Zeitung. Kurti said that in his meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in March this year he presented a draft with three conditions: “recognise the constitutionality of our Republic. The Association [of Serb-majority municipalities] cannot be an executive government and cannot create a third tier of governance. But the minute that the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo is mentioned, Mr. Vucic does not want to hear anything about it.”

“I am not stubborn, I am principled”.

“When I met Mr. Vucic,” Kurti said, “it seems that he always wants to go back in time: first to 1999 when we were liberated, then to 2008 when we declared independence and then to February 27 this year, when he said ‘Yes’ to the agreement presented by the EU in Brussels, but which he did not sign”.

Commenting on the reporter’s remark that western diplomats consider him a difficult partner and accuse him of being stubborn, Kurti said; “I don’t think I am stubborn, I am principled. Politics cannot be seen isolated from ethics and values”.

Read full interview at: https://t.ly/_h9K

Maliqi: Kurti no longer has credibility to set conditions in dialogue (Gazeta Blic)

Publicist Shkelzen Maliqi said in an interview with the news website that Prime Minister Albin Kurti no longer has credibility to set conditions in the dialogue, when asked if Kosovo should condition the dialogue with the release of three police officers being held in Serbia. He argued that Kurti’s tactics to “prolong” the dialogue through conditions have not brought any benefits, and that Kosovo is now on the verge of sanctions from the EU and the U.S.

Maliqi said that Kurti must now work to repair relations with the allies. “Otherwise, the release of the three abducted police officers has become a request of international factors. They apply pressure on Belgrade for their unconditional release, so now it has become a precondition for de-escalation. If Prime Minister Kurti has an ounce of pragmatic rationality left, he should work on restoring trust and repairing coordinating relations with the strategic allies which he has damaged to a great extent by ridiculing or by giving strategic, political and moralising preaching to leaders of world superpowers,” he said.

Surroi compares Serbian List to Dodik (Nacionale) 

Veton Surroi, KOHA Media Group founder, peace and independence negotiator for Kosovo, journalist and writer, writes in a Twitter post today that “the Serbian List led ethnic Serb officials to withdraw from institutions in north of Kosovo. Dodik pressures officials to withdraw from state-level institutions in BH. Both complain that Serbs are not part of the decision-making process.”

Serbian Language Media 

Arrest in North Mitrovica; KP: Arrested Serb suspected of attack on members of KFOR (Kosovo Online)

Kosovo Online reported that Kosovo police special units arrested N.O., who works in a local utility company.

The Kosovo police issued an official statement regarding today’s arrest of Serbian man N.O. near the bus station in North Mitrovica, stating that he was detained on suspicion of having participated in the attack on members of KFOR on May 29 in Zvecan, reported the portal.

Office for KiM: New arrest just a day after the dialogue an indication that Kurti wants new crises (gracanicaonline.info)

The Office for Kosovo and Metohija announced today that members of the Special Police arrested Serb Nenad O. from North Mitrovica, just a day after the dialogue in Brussels and despite the messages of the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Joseph Borrell, that Pristina must stop baseless and arbitrary arrests.

“This arrest, which was not coincidentally timed on the morning after the dialogue in Brussels, clearly shows that Albin Kurti will not calm tensions in the north of Kosovo and Metohija, he will not de-escalate, but he wants new crises and tensions on the ground,” read the KiM Office statement, reported portal gracanicaionline.info. 

The statement added that ”Nenad is an employee of a utility company from Kosovska Mitrovica and the father of four children, and that he was arrested this morning when members of the Special Unit surrounded him in a car wash, with automatic weapons pointed at him”.

“Nenad is the eighth Serb who has been arrested since the outbreak of the crisis in the north of Kosovo and Metohija, by which Kurti and his squads of violence want to break the resistance of the peaceful Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija and declare them criminals just because they offer peaceful and non-violent resistance to the terror of Pristina,” stated the Office among other things.

The arrested person will be provided with a lawyer and legal assistance through the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, and the representatives of the international community were immediately informed about the new arrest, it was stated in the announcement.

Serbian List: Unfounded and arbitrary arrests as a method of persecution (KiM radio)

The Serbian List invited EULEX and KFOR to, on the occasion of the latest arrest of N.O. from Northern Mitrovica to deploy its forces as a matter of urgency and guarantee peace and security to all citizens, and in this way prevent Kosovo PM Albin Kurti from, as they claim, leading the entire Balkans into conflict, reported KiM radio.

“It is their duty and obligation to protect citizens, regardless of nationality, because the institutional violence that Kurti carries out is unbearable,” the statement reads.

They note that the arrested Serb is N.O. today at the workplace by Kurti’s regime, just a few hours after the high representative of the European Union spoke with Kurti in Brussels.

“Unfounded and arbitrary arrests are used as a method of persecuting all Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, in front of the eyes of the entire international community, which with its silence gave space to Kurti to deal with the Serbs,” they said and added:

“N.O., who is a family man, the father of four children, worked part-time in a car wash, in order to stay in his native Kosovo and Metohija and provide for his children. His arrest continues Kurti’s plan, according to which half of the Serbs should be expelled and half should be arrested,” the statement concludes, reported KiM radio.

We want peace, freedom and harmony, message from protest in Gracanica (KiM radio)

The third protest was held in Gracanica due to the arrest of Dragisa Milenkovic from Kisnica. In front of the police station, the President of the Youth Council Dusan Borisavljevic and the poet Ratko Popovic addressed the crowd and the media. “We want peace, freedom and harmony”, it was said, and then the gathered started walking to the Gracanica monastery.

Many people, including family members of the arrested Dragisa Milenkovic from Kisnica, gathered today in Gracanica to express their dissatisfaction with his arrest, but also with other Serbs accused of war crimes, and those arrested in the north of Kosovo in the last three weeks.

“Nowhere in the Criminal Code does it say that it is a criminal offense to be a Serb, to celebrate fame or to live on the estates of your great-grandfathers and grandfathers. However, with the increasingly frequent arrests of Serbs in Kosovo, I cannot help but notice that this is precisely one of the biggest crimes in this southern provincial”, said the president of the Youth Center in Gracanica, Dusan Borisavljevic.

He appealed to the international community to ensure, as he said, a somewhat normal life for the Serbs in the ghetto.

“To provide us with at least a little freedom when they failed to do so in the cities, where today there are almost no Serbs. The question arises for me, how a nation that throughout history defended and fought for Europe, democracy, freedom today in that same Europe, has neither freedom nor justice, even if they were in the ghetto. There is no answer to that question, but also why Milenkovic, why our friends, brothers, why they were arrested,” he added.

Serbs living in Kosovo, he notes, must be aware that there is a huge burden on their backs.

“That burden comes with a huge blessing because we are the ones who protect the centuries from oblivion. We are not alone in this effort, Milutin’s Gracanica, Holy Archangels Holy Archangels, Visoki Decani, Zociste, Draganac, Banjska stand by us,” Borisavljevic said. 

He pointed out that currently the Milenkovic family from Kisnica bears the biggest burden.

“We must be united, so that with God’s help we do not fall for provocations, we have endured for centuries, and we will endure this too,” Borisavljević concluded.

“We are looking for peace, freedom for our children, families and for our neighbors with whom we once lived beautifully, went to the same schools, colleges. All that has disappeared,” said the poet Ratko Popovic.

The gathering passed without incident, was secured by members of the Kosovo Police, and members of KFOR were also present. Traffic on the Pristina-Gnjilane main road that passes through this place was diverted through side streets during the protest and is currently passable.

Protests continue in the north, trucks with Serbian goods still at the crossings (KiM radio, Radio Mitrovica sever)

Serbs in the north of Kosovo are still peacefully protesting in front of municipal buildings in Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok. At the administrative crossings, blockade continues for trucks transporting goods from central Serbia.

The demands of the Serbs from the north of Kosovo are still the same: to withdraw the special units of the Kosovo Police from the municipal buildings, to disable the work of the mayors who were illegitimately elected in the last elections, and to release the arrested Serbs.

The Kosovo government made a decision on the basis of which it allowed entry only to vehicles transporting foreign goods, regardless of license plates. Passenger traffic in both directions is proceeding normally with increased control by the Kosovo police.

Borrell to submit report on Belgrade-Pristina dialogue to the heads of EU diplomacy on Monday (Kosovo Online)  

On Monday, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy and Security, Giuseppe Borrell, should submit a report to the ministers of foreign affairs of the member states on the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, reported Kosovo Online.

The heads of EU diplomacy will gather in Luxembourg on June 26. As it was stated in the announcement of the meeting, negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina under the auspices of the EU will also be on the agenda.

Joseph in Zvecan: It is important to hear the views of Kosovo (Kosovo Online, Twitter)

Political analyst Edward Joseph was in Zvecan to talk to the Serbs about the protest and about the events.

Joseph posted on Twitter that it is long past time to resolve the Kosovo issue and stop the emigration of young people.

“Important to hear perspectives of Kosovo Serbs, including about protests/violence here at Zvecan municipality on 29 May. Long-past time to settle the Kosovo question & stem the flight of young citizens, Albanians & Serbs alike, from Kosovo & neighbouring countries,” he tweeted. 

DW: The German government seeking an explanation for Gasic’s accusations (KiM radio)

The government in Berlin rejected the “insinuations” of Serbian Interior Minister Bratislava Gasic, according to a response to Deutsche Welle, reported KiM radio.

Germany does not know who killed Oliver Ivanovic, it was added in a response for DW.

Berlin requested an urgent explanation from the Serbian authorities regarding the accusations leveled against Germany by the Minister of the Interior, Bratislav Gasic. 

We resolutely reject insinuations that the perpetrator is under the protection of German authorities, says a spokesperson for the German government in a written response to Deutsche Welle’s inquiry.

“The federal government has no knowledge of who killed Oliver Ivanovic on January 16, 2018, and has asked the Serbian government to clarify the accusations of the Serbian interior minister as soon as possible,” added the response.

The Government in Berlin did not specifically answer the questions about whether the accusations could have consequences for the relations between the two countries, as well as what Serbia specifically requested and what the German services forwarded regarding the murder of Ivanovic.

“Germany and Serbia cooperate closely in many fields that connect us,” the answer states in general.