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Kosovo and Metohija Serb leader Rakic announces plans to set up crisis headquarters

Rakic said that earlier statements on behalf of (the unrecognized republic of) Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti "the fire was only heated and that the Serbian families are scared"

BELGRADE, December 12. /TASS/. Kosovo and Metohija Serb leader Goran Rakic announced on Monday that crisis headquarters would be set up with the aim of informing citizens and media about the situation in the north of Kosovo.

Web portal Serbia.postsen.com quoted Rakic as saying in an interview with Pink-TV as saying: "Tensions did not drop. We are here in Zvecan, more precisely in the place of Rudare, where people are gathering more and more and more citizens are arriving every moment."

Rakic said that earlier statements on behalf of (the unrecognized republic of) Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti "the fire was only heated and that the Serbian families are scared."

The official said that he was setting up crisis headquarters, which would be providing citizens and media with the first-hand information about the developing situation.

Earlier, the Kosovo police detained Dejan Pantic, a former Serb policeman, at the Jarinje checkpoint on the administrative border between Kosovo and Metohija, and central Serbia. In response, the Serb population erected barricades in a highway in several settlements near the checkpoint and took to the streets in protest not to let Pantic be taken to Pristina.

KFOR (a NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo) and EULEX (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) patrols have been pulled to the barricades.

On December 10, President of the unrecognized republic of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani made a decision to postpone early elections in the Serb-populated northern areas of Kosovo and Metohija for five months, to April 23.

On the same day, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an address to the nation that Belgrade would ask the KFOR to deploy forces in Kosovo and Metohija under UN Security Council resolution 1244.

Kosovo and Metohija Serbs quitted all government offices of the unrecognized Kosovo on November 5. The Serbs took the measures after the Kosovo government decided to levy fines on everyone who didn’t change their Serbian license plates to Kosovo's starting on November 22 of this year. Before April 21, 2023, the fines will amount to 150 euros, and afterward the Kosovo police will start seizing cars with Serbian license plates.

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