0
0
The barricades on roads in the north of the breakaway province of Kosovo have been removed by a NATO security mission, diffusing sky-high tensions that broke out mid-December and persisted over Boxing Day.
KFOR said it had removed the vehicles to make roads in the north of Kosovo-Metohija passable and restore freedom of movement, Tanjung reported.
Since the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo in 1998, ethnic Serbs living in the north of the breakaway province of Kosovo occasionally barricade major border roads with trucks in protest of reportedly harsh treatment by ethnically-Albanian Kosovar security forces.
This latest round of barricading, which saw Serbian President Aleksandr Vuvic mobilize the Serbian army, arose in response to the arrests of Serb police officers Milan Adzic, Sladjan Trajkovic, and Dejan Pantic in northern Kosovo, and to the presence of special police troops in the north of Kosovo-Metohija.
Although the standoff highlighted the significant failures of the EU, NATO, and the US to act as the international moderators and peacemakers they believe themselves to be, it garnered almost no Western media attention.
