KFOR spokesman Vincenzo Grasso said on Wednesday that Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was not accompanied by any paramilitary or special forces units when he went to the Gazivode lake and did not need permission from the NATO-led forces for the visit.
Abbot of Visoki Decani Monastery, Father Sava Janjic assessed that “proponents of Serbian territory division have not given up on their plan,” KIM Radio reports.
Commenting on Saturday’s event and tense situation around Gazivode lake, Abbot Janjic wrote on social networks that “while thousands of Kosovo Albanians are protesting in Pristina against the land-swap idea, Thaci with his heavily armed police intrudes Gazivode, handcuffs Serbs, creating incident to divert attention. KFOR must urgently calm the situation and prevent escalation of violence.”
Prior and during “the storming” by the Kosovo special police units ROSU of Gazivode, there were three KFOR drones flying in the sky of Kosovo and Metohija, Belgrade-based daily Vecernje Novosti writes today.
According to the daily, one of the drones covered directly the north of the province, so Belgrade excludes possibility that KFOR did not know about Hashim Thaci’s operation.
Italian Minister of Defence, Elisabetta Trenta, Italian Ambassador in Pristina, Piero Cristoforo Sardi, the Italian Chief of General Staff, General Claudio Graziano, the head of the Chief of Defence Office, General Francesco Figliuolo, KFOR commander, General Salvatore Cuoci and their associates visited Serbian Orthodox Church Visoki Decani monastery yesterday, KoSSev portal reported.
In the statement of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, the Deputy Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Dusan Kozarev, said at the OSCE Human Dimension Conference in Warsaw that Serbs in Kosovo have been exposed to ethnically-motivated attacks in the past year about 50 times. Kozarev estimates that this is largely due to the failure Pristina to fulfil its obligations in terms of establishing the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO), reports Radio Television of Serbia (RTS).
Problems can only be solved by leaders talking and the people of Kosovo are waiting for them to start political talks, a senior KFOR commander told the Beta news agency on Tuesday.
Serbian Army Chief-of-Staff, Major General Ljubisa Dikovic and KFOR Commander, Major General Salvatore Cuici during the meeting on Thursday, assessed the security situation in Kosovo as complex, BETA news agency reported.
General Dikovic said the Army of Serbia recognized the international forces in Kosovo as an essential factor for stability, the guarantor of the Serb people safety and the protector of their national, cultural and historical heritage.
Commander of KFOR Multi-National Brigade East and US base in Kosovo Bondsteel, Colonel Nick Ducich told Kontakt plus radio the current security situation in Kosovo is peaceful and stable. He expects no incidents but pointed out that KFOR was ready to handle anything that might be considered as provocation.
When asked if the allegations published by some media are true, that KFOR is training Kosovo Security Forces (KSF), Ducich said that KFOR was training KSF, but only within the framework of KFOR’s mandate and the US as a country, in terms of the key competencies.
Director of Public Company “Ibar” Srdjan Vulovic informed TV Most that KFOR soldiers withdrew from their position near the Gazivode dam and hydro power plant last night about 9.30 pm.
TV Most reports that soldiers of the US KFOR contingent also left their position at Valac power substation last night, where they were stationed.
Amid growing nervousness in Serb-majority northern Kosovo, NATO commander says the alliance is more than ready to deal with any trouble on the streets.
The Commander of NATO’s Allied Joint Force in Naples, Admiral James Fogo, has said that NATO is ready to react if violent incidents erupt in the Serb-majority north of Kosovo – after a leading Serbian Orthodox cleric in Kosovo, Abbot Sava Janjic, warned of the risk of “staged” violence there.