Following the removal of barriers erected by ethnic Serbs in protest of a policeman’s detention, all border crossings separating Kosovo from Serbia have reopened, reducing tensions in the tense area.
After barricades on the Serbian side of the Merdare border post were taken down, the main crossing between the neighbors reopened on Thursday. Two smaller border crossings “opened for traffic in the afternoon” on Friday, according to Kosovo police.
Near the hotspot city of Mitrovica, where two torched trucks – the intended target of suspected arson – still blocked the route, one roadblock was still in place.
On December 10, tensions erupted after ethnic Serbs in the north erected barricades in opposition to the arrest of a former policeman who was allegedly responsible for attacks on ethnic Albanian police personnel.
International soldiers and Kosovar police were attacked in a number of gun events after the roadblocks were put in place.
This week, the Serbian military was placed on high alert, raising concerns about a potential armed war in the unstable Balkan area.
After a Pristina court ordered the release of the former police officer, whose arrest Serbs had claimed as the primary justification for establishing the barricades, tensions subsided on Wednesday.
Following appeals for de-escalation from the US and the EU, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic encouraged Serbs to remove the barriers.
The removal of the barricades was praised on Thursday by the EU and NATO, the latter of which is in charge of a peacekeeping operation in Kosovo.
Josep Borrell, the head of the EU’s foreign policy, declared that diplomacy had succeeded in defusing the tensions in north Kosovo.
He stated that “violence can never be a solution” and emphasized the demand for “urgent progress” in the conversation between Belgrade and Pristina, which is being helped by the EU.
“Efforts to de-escalate tensions in northern Kosovo” were praised by NATO as well.
Since hundreds of ethnic Serb police officers, mayors, judges, and prosecutors collectively went on strike in November, North Kosovo has been on edge.
They were opposing the contentious regulation that Pristina later abandoned that forbade Serbs in Kosovo from using license plates issued by Belgrade.
The tensions were only increased by an attempt to fill the vacuum by sending ethnic Albanian police men to the Serb-majority north.
After a bloody war in the late 1990s, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008.
Belgrade encourages Kosovo’s 120,000 ethnic Serbs to disobey its laws because it does not recognize Pristina’s rule, particularly in the north where they are the majority.
