BELGRADE, December 19. /TASS/. Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic on Monday told the RTS television that the situation in Kosovo and Metohija is on the cusp of an armed conflict.
When asked how Serbian security agencies assess the situation in the Serbian province, she said, "The situation has been brought to the brink of clashes, armed conflict. This is an assessment of all the services that monitor the situation there."
Brnabic said that the only way out of the situation is a full implementation of the Brussels agreements, which would become the basis for new agreements.
"But who can guarantee new agreements if the old ones are not fulfilled? Brussels is not able to guarantee, it was the guarantor of the Brussels agreements, which have not been implemented. Who will guarantee, Washington? Martians?" the prime minister said.
The situation in Kosovo deteriorated sharply on December 6, when the special forces of the unrecognized territory, accompanied by patrols of the European Union Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), began to seize the premises of election commissions in the north of Kosovo and Metohija. The Serbian population rebuffed the Kosovars, who fled across the Ibar River. On 8 December, some 350 police officers from Kosovo invaded the Serb-populated north of the province in armoured vehicles and blockaded the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica. On 10 December, Kosovo police in Kosovska Mitrovica arrested a former Serb policeman on trumped-up charges. In response, the Serbian population took to the streets and barricaded highways in several settlements.
On December 15, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the Cabinet of Ministers had decided to send a request to the NATO mission in the province for the return of Serbian military and police to Kosovo and Metohija in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1244.