KFOR Commander Major-General Salvatore Couci said KFOR was ready to intervene during the visit of the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian media report today.
In a statement to Prva TV, General Couci said Kosovo institutions made the decision to avoid Vucic’s visit to Banje village, explaining that KFOR is a third security provider in Kosovo.
Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) condemned attacks against journalists during the visit of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Kosovo over the weekend, insisting that responsible institutions should react, identify and punish the perpetrators, FoNet news agency reported.
During Sunday, in several, separate incidents, journalists from Insajder, Tanjug and DW were provoked and attacked.
On his two-day visit to Kosovo, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied the two countries were near a solution to their dispute, and was prevented from visiting a Serb-majority village.
“Do we have any draft solutions in Brussels? We do not, we are not even close to it,” President Aleksandar Vucic said in a speech before thousands of Serbs in the Serb-run northern half of the divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica on Sunday.
GAZIVODE LAKE, Kosovo (Reuters) - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic pledged to continue talks with Kosovo officials to resolve differences but warned it would take a long time to reach a broad deal with Pristina that could allow both nations to move towards EU membership.
Expectations of an agreement that would involve a land swap, a proposal floated by both Belgrade and Pristina, dimmed after a face-to-face meeting between Vucic and his Kosovo counterpart, Hashim Thaci, was abruptly cancelled on Friday.
President Aleksandar Vucic completed his two-day visit to Kosovo and Metohija on Sunday by addressing citizens at the central square in Mitrovica North.
The second day of Vucic's visit to Kosovo was marked by incidents and the roadblocks put up by ethnic Albanians on the way to the Serb village of Banje.
The president then decided to return to Mitrovica North, as police informed him that the blockades were two kilometers ahead of the convoy, and that it was not safe to continue the trip.
Frozen conflict in Kosovo at this moment is a better solution, since an agreement on normalization of relations would encompass swift and hasty measures and would in fact represent a legal act on the recognition of Kosovo, former Minister for Kosovo and Metohija and Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade Professor, Slobodan Samardzic told FoNet news agency.
According to Samardzic hasty reached agreement can not resolve conflict that lasts more than 120 years, adding that the entire process in reaching a compromise seeks time to inform the public about it.
EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini said today, after separate meetings with Serbian and Kosovo presidents, Aleksandar Vucic and Hashim Thaci, that there are still difficulties, while the next high-level meeting would be scheduled prior to the Ministerial week of the UN General Assembly in New York, Tanjug news agency reported.
Mogherini added she is convinced in the full commitment of the both presidents to continue negotiation process and reach in the forthcoming months legally binding agreement on comprehensive normalization of relations in line with international law.
Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic urged the international community “not to test Serbia’s patience and understanding,” BETA news agency is reporting.
Brnabic underlined that the international community should understand the severity of the situation in Belgrade-Pristina negotiations and act in line with it.
The situation in Kosovo and Metohija will not be discussed at the UN Security Council in September.
This will not happen because the US, which this month presides over this body of the world organization, did not include the report of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in the agenda, Belgrade-based daily Vecernje Novosti reported.
An operational group of British intelligence agency MI6 was relocated from Macedonia to Kosovo and Metohija on Wednesday, and the reason behind such a move is the arrival of Serbian President Vucic in Kosovo.
This is according to Belgrade-based daily Vecernje Novosti, referring to well informed source from intelligence structures.