The NATO-led international peacekeeping mission in Kosovo (KFOR) has received Belgrade's request to return police and military forces from Serbia to Kosovo, RFE/RL confirmed on December 16.
"We received a letter from Serbia and we are currently evaluating it. KFOR remains extremely cautious and fully capable of fulfilling its UN mandate," the mission said in response to a request from RFE/RL for confirmation that Belgrade formally made the request.
Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said earlier on December 16 that the Serbian armed forces submitted a request to KFOR for the return of up to 1,000 members of the Serbian Army and police officers to Kosovo.
Vucevic said in a statement that he informed the president and the prime minister that the Serbian armed forces submitted the written request on December 16 after sending the necessary documentation by e-mail.
Vucevic said in a statement this mean that Serbia had "formally and technically” initiated the procedure.
He added that it is "something that no one can dispute with Serbia in the context of protecting our national and state interests and certainly for the sake of protecting our people in the territory of the province of Kosovo and Metohija."
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said earlier this week he planned to seek the return of Serbian troops to Kosovo. But he said later that he expected the request to be turned down based on recent statements of diplomats active in the region.
U.S. special envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL in an interview on December 13 that the United States “categorically” opposes the return of Serbian forces to Kosovo and noted that Pristina has firm security guarantees from the United States through its participation in KFOR.
Belgrade has said it needs to send members of its security forces in response to the increased presence of Kosovar police in northern Kosovo.
The request comes with tensions increasing in the north of Kosovo, whose declaration of independence in 2008 has not been recognized by Belgrade.
Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo quit their jobs last month over the government’s recent plans to implement a license-plate conversion program.
Groups of Serbs last weekend blocked roads, preventing traffic toward two border crossings with Serbia. The barricades were set up after Kosovo police arrested former Serbian policeman Dejan Pantic on suspicion of being involved in an attack on Central Election Commission officials.
The European Union and the United States expressed concern about the rise in tensions and called for the barricades to be removed.