BELGRADE, August 9. /TASS/. Serbia may look at changing the course of Ibar River feeding Kosovo’s largest hydropower plant if Pristina continues persecuting Kosovo Serbs, Serbian President Alexander Vucic has warned.

"Can we go to war with NATO? I don’t think so. We are doing everything we can to alleviate the plight of our people [in Kosovo and Metohija]. We have already invited experts working on this issue, representatives of the construction sector, engineers, and other specialists, but they (the self-proclaimed authorities in Pristina - TASS) are causing our people so much trouble. We’ll see -- we have various reasons for diverting the course of the Ibar River, so we’ll see what the Albanians do and how they behave," he told journalists.

The 270-kilometer-long Ibar River flows via Serbia and Montenegro and feeds Gazivode Lake of Kosovo’s largest hydropower plant of the same name.

UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999 recognizes the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija is part of Serbia. It also authorized international civilian and military presence in the province. However, Kosovo’s authorities unilaterally proclaimed its independence in February 2008. Sixteen world nations, including Russia, India, and China, as well as five European Union countries, are refusing to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

n recent years, he Kosovo authorities have shut down practically all Serbian government institutions in Kosovo’s northern areas, where ethnic Serbs make up the majority of the population. Pristina-controlled police forces regularly conduct raids against local Serbs, detaining them under various pretexts.