Kosovo Govt Rejects NATO Deal With Serbia

Condemns Agreement on Freedom of Movement as 'Unacceptable

NATO was calling the rising tensions in Kosovo’s north a thing of the past today, insisting they had reached an agreement with the Serbian government to ensure freedom of movement between Serbia and the ethnic-Serbian region of northern Kosovo.

This appears to have been a premature assessment, however, as the Kosovo government quickly and angrily rejected the deal, saying the deal allowing the free flow of people across the border was entirely “unacceptable.”

NATO seemed keen on defusing the crisis quickly, after their attempt at seizing the border posts spawned civilian-assembled roadblocks and led them to deploy more troops to the country’s Serb-majority north.

The entire situation started early last week, when ethnic-Albanian government forces captured the border posts, claiming that the Kosovar Serb police were allowing the region to ignore an import ban. NATO seemed initially to back Kosovo in the move, but now appears to be just trying to end the matter as quietly as possible, agreeing to a deal with Serbia that mostly allowed border traffic to resume. The Kosovo government seems determined to continue the controversy no matter what, in an effort to punish their Serb minority for its secessionist ambitions.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.