Kurti: No concessions in return for removal of barricades

NEWS 06.01.202313:49
REUTERS/Fedja Grulovic/File Photo

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti told the Voice of America that his government made no concessions in return for the removal of the barricades put up by Serbs in the north.

“We granted KFOR’s request for more time to remove them without our police which would have intervened before the New Year if the barricades had not been removed… We did not look forward to a police intervention, we wanted KFOR to do that …. It’s good that the people who set up the barricades removed them. I am firmly convinced that they put them up out of fear and removed them out of fear,” Kurti said.

According to him, the barricades were put up by what he called Serbia’s illegal structure which have turned into criminal gangs. He added that they appeared at the moment that his government decided to postpone the local elections in northern Kosovo for April. “So in some way, we made a concession immediately and they put up the barricades because they had no excuses left,” he said.

Kurti accused the Serbian authorities of not distancing themselves from the late President Slobodan Milosevic or from Russian President Vladimir Putin in their approach to Kosovo. “We have to realize that we have a hostile state to the north which has not changed its constitution and which is very aggressive towards our country with those 48 offensive bases – 28 military and 20 Gendarmerie,” he said.