Police officers are being coerced into resigning due to pressure and threats from Belgrade-backed institutions, the Kosovo Interior Minister, Xhelal Svecla, stared a day after the EULEX chief revealed that three Kosovo Serb members of the KP had tendered their resignations.
“Looking with concern at the recent resignations of three newly recruited Kosovo Serbs members of the Kosovo Police. EULEX is closely following these worrisome developments,“ EULEX mission chief Giovanni Pietro Barbano said yesterday.
In the meantime, a number of international officials reacted to the news, expressing concern, while the first reactions from Kosovo officials appeared last night. The president of Kosovo accused Serbia of intimidation, while her Chief of Staff, Blerim Vela, said that Belgrade must be sanctioned because of this.
The Kosovo Police has yet to react.
After requesting more information, EULEX told us last night what the head of this mission had already tweeted.
“Looking with concern at the recent resignations of 3 newly recruited Kosovo Serbs members of the Kosovo Police. EULEX is closely following these worrisome developments,“ they stated.
They referred us to the Kosovo Police, which we had in fact contacted earlier in the day.
However, no response was forthcoming at the time this news was published.
A day later, the Kosovo Interior Minister, Xhelal Svecla, repeated Osmani and Vela’s accusations, alleging that the officers were forced to resign through “threats and pressures” from Belgrade.
“This way they are intentionally harming the Serbian minority in Kosovo and violating our sovereignty,” Svecla warned, adding:
“This has to stop. International community should react harshly to Serbia’s behaviour.”
The media also reported about the resignation of these officers, referring to their findings.
A gentleman’s agreement between KP and Radoicic?
Pristina-based Kallxo reported that seven new Serbian members of the Kosovo Police allegedly left this institution, that is, three officially, while four more are in the process of resigning, to be also confirmed today by the Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu.
IndeksOnline also mentioned the same figure. While referring to its sources, this media outlet reported that four officers reportedly worked in Leposavic, two in Zvecan and one in Mitrovica, without specifying whether it was in the northern or southern part of the town.
The Paparaci portal claimed that the resignation of these police officers was actually a „gentleman’s agreement“ allegedly between the Kosovo Police and the vice president of Srpska Lista, Milan Radoicic, Indeksonline reports.
The same media claims that this „agreement“ was allegedly reached at a meeting in Kraljevo.
Furthermore, the portal writes, while claiming that they actually spoke to one of the policemen who resigned, that they „accepted salaries and guarantees for other jobs from Radoicic in exchange for leaving the Kosovo Police“.
The police station in the north gained 74 new police officers last month, all of them from non-Albanian communities. More than half (45) are ethnic Serbs, 16 are Bosniaks, 3 are Turks and 8 are members of the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities.
The officers are part of a group of 418 Kosovo Police cadets who recently completed their training. At a ceremony marking the end of the six-month police training course, which was held in mid July in Pristina, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti emphasized that this service is “the most reliable institution in Kosovo, a continuation of the Kosovo Liberation Army.“
The Serbs from the north of Kosovo left most of Kosovo’s institutions in November, including more than 500 police officers.
Since Serbs left the police force, their jobs have been taken by Albanian policemen from other regions throughout Kosovo.
The work of the regular police, however, has been overshadowed for months by the presence and deployment of special police units in the North, with at least four bases and several checkpoints.
Read more:
Rasic on Serb police officers who resigned from KP: Full support for our boys in blue
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