The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, announced this Saturday that he will ask NATO to deploy the Serbian Army and Police in Kosovo amid an upturn in tension in recent hours at the border crossings with Serbia.
Although the president has “no illusions” about the possibility that NATO will accept such a deployment at such a critical moment, Vucic has defended that Serbia has the right to make this request and criticized the margin of maneuver that the authorities are enjoying. Kosovars, who have declared their intention to apply this month for their application to join the European Union, as he has made known in a speech picked up by the B92 channel.
If the request is confirmed, it would be the first time that Belgrade has requested to deploy in Kosovo, under the provisions of a UN Security Council resolution that ended a 1998-1999 war, in which NATO ended up interceding to protect Kosovo, with its Albanian majority.
According to the resolution cited by Vucic, Serbia can deploy up to 1,000 military, police and customs personnel at Orthodox Christian religious sites, areas with Serb majorities and border crossings, if such deployment is approved by the KFOR command.
