BELGRADE, December 28. /TASS/. Pristina is cooperating with the NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo and Metohija to ensure freedom of movement in the Serbian province, the prime minister of the self-proclaimed Kosovo, Albin Kurti, said on Wednesday.
"Setting up barricades on the roads won’t be accepted. KFOR asked for time to respond but that time is running out. We are cooperating and coordinating our work with KFOR. One thing is clear: freedom of movement must be restored," Kurti was quoted as saying at a cabinet meeting by the Koha news outlet.
Earlier, Belgrade successfully pushed Pristina to release a former policeman and other Serbs that had been arrested for participating in rallies. Serbian President Alexandar Vucic said a day earlier that the release of the Serbs was a condition for a de-escalation in Kosovo and Metohija and the taking down of the barricades.
The government of the self-proclaimed Kosovo earlier put its armed forces on full combat alert. Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic and Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic responded by saying that the Serbian armed forces were also ordered by President Alexandar Vucic to be on full combat alert.
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, 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 December 8, some 350 police officers from Kosovo invaded the Serb-populated north of the province in armored vehicles and blockaded the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica. On December 10, Kosovo police in Kosovska Mitrovica arrested a former Serbian policeman on trumped-up charges. In response, the Serbian population took to the streets and barricaded highways in several settlements.