Several vehicles of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) mistakenly entered the territory of the North Mitrovica municipality, which is predominantly populated by Serbs, the newspaper “Koha Ditore“ reported. quoted by BTA.
This was reported by the head of the KSF Public Information Department, Vlazrim Cherimi, who explained that the vehicles were there for only a few minutes. Çerimi said in response to “Koha ditore“ that the cause of the deviation was confusion and that the convoy was going from the northwestern town of Istog to the KSF barracks in the South Mitrovica municipality, which is mainly populated by ethnic Albanians.
The deployment of the KSF in northern Kosovo is possible only with the prior approval of the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR), the newspaper recalls.
This permission is based on a 2013 agreement between Kosovo and NATO, which is still in force and according to which the then Prime Minister of Kosovo Hashim Thaçi guaranteed to the then NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen that the Kosovo Security Force would not go to northern Kosovo without prior approval from KFOR.
The KSF's few-minute stay in the municipality was also confirmed by the Deputy Director of the Kosovo Police for Northern Kosovo, Veton Elshani. He stated that the Kosovo Security Forces were not armed, and their stay was five minutes, after which the Kosovo police noticed them and asked them about the situation, to which they replied that they thought they were in South Mitrovica.
According to information from Serbian media and videos that were distributed on Telegram, the KSF vehicles entered the main road in North Mitrovica on Thursday morning.
According to eyewitnesses in front of the portal of the Kosovo Serbs from North Kosovo “KosSev“, the stay of the vehicles, which were about a dozen and included several “Hummers“ and three or four trucks, was about ten minutes, writes “Koha Ditore“. Initially, people there thought they were KFOR vehicles.
KFOR issued a statement yesterday evening, stating that the Kosovo Security Force had confirmed to them that their convoy had mistakenly entered northern Kosovo.
NATO peacekeeping forces in Kosovo said they accepted the statements of KSF commander Lieutenant General Bashkim Jashari and the Kosovo police that the convoy had mistakenly deviated from its course for a few minutes and had immediately returned to its original route in southern Kosovo.