BELGRADE – Serbia’s president on Sunday denied U.S. and different studies of a military buildup alongside the border with Kosovo, complaining of a “campaign of lies” in opposition to his nation in the wake of a shootout every week previous that killed four people and fueled tensions in the unstable Balkan area.
Both the United States and the European Union expressed fear previous this week about what they mentioned was once an greater army deployment by means of Serbia’s border with its former province, and so they steered Belgrade to scale down its troop presence there.
Kosovo’s executive mentioned Saturday it was once tracking the actions of the Serbian army from “three different directions.” It steered Serbia to in an instant pull again its troops and demilitarize the border house.
“A campaign of lies … has been launched against our Serbia,” President Aleksandar Vucic answered in a video post on Instagram. “They have lied a lot about the presence of our military forces …. In fact, they are bothered that Serbia has what they describe as sophisticated weapons.”
Associated Press newshounds touring in the border area Sunday noticed a number of Serbian military shipping automobiles riding away towards central Serbia, an indication that the army may well be cutting down its presence in the area following calls from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others.
Tensions have soared following the violence in northern Kosovo final Sunday involving closely armed Serb gunmen and Kosovo cops. The conflict was once one of the worst since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and brought on NATO to announce it might improve a peacekeeping force stationed in the rustic.
Serbia has denied Kosovo’s allegations that it educated the gang of some 30 males who opened fireplace on cops, leaving one useless, after which barricaded themselves in an Orthodox Christian monastery in northern Kosovo. Three insurgents died in the hours-long shootout that ensued.
Kosovo has additionally mentioned it was once investigating possible Russian involvement in the violence. Serbia is Russia’s primary best friend in Europe, and there are fears in the West that Moscow may attempt to stir bother in the Balkans to avert consideration from the war in Ukraine.
John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, mentioned Friday that U.S. officers had been tracking a big deployment of Serbian troops alongside the border with Kosovo, describing it as an “unprecedented staging of advanced Serbian artillery, tanks and mechanized infantry units.”
Vucic has a number of occasions during the last months raised the battle readiness stage of Serbian troops at the border with Kosovo. Serbia additionally has been reinforcing its troops with guns and different apparatus principally bought from Russia and China.
“We will continue to invest in the defense of our country but Serbia wants peace,” the president mentioned Sunday. “Everything they said they made up and lied, and they knew they were making up and lying.”
Last weekend’s shootout near the village of Banjska adopted months of tensions in Kosovo’s north, the place ethnic Serbs are a majority of the inhabitants and feature demanded self-rule. Dozens of squaddies from the NATO-led peacekeeping power referred to as KFOR had been injured in May in a conflict with ethnic Serbs protesting the Kosovo police presence in the world.
Fearing wider instability because the struggle rages in Ukraine, Washington and Brussels have sought to barter a normalization of members of the family between Serbia and Kosovo, however the two facets have didn’t enforce a tentative settlement that was once just lately reached as section of an EU-mediated discussion.