Chief of Staff: Situation in Ground Safety Zone stable but unpredictable

“It is burdened by the security crisis” in the territory of Kosovo which could “easily spill over to a part of the territory in Serbia proper,” that is, to the Ground Safety Zone, the Chief of Staff told the Serbian state TV (RTS) on Tuesday evening.

Asked to comment on the September 24 clashes in the village of Banjska, northern Kosovo, Mojsilovic said there were no “indications that something so big and so complicated would happen,” and that the situation had been as usual.

Information on the events and on the wounded began coming in on the morning of September 24, and contact was then made with the KFOR commander, he added.

“We got in touch with the (Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic) Supreme Commander…as Chief of Staff I was given a task – to establish full control of the Ground Safety Zone and to fully secure the administrative line by preventively deploying part of the Serbian Armed Forces troops,” said Mojsilovic.

He noted that these orders were not unusual and that they were in line with the developments on the ground.

“That was not full combat readiness of the Serbian Armed Forces,” he told the RTS.

Armed clashes broke out between a group of Serbs and the Kosovo Police in the Banjska village in northern Kosovo on September 24 in which one Kosovo police officer and three Serbs were killed.