Lunic: Kurti's statement about the GSZ is populist; Serbia does not have forces there intended for war

Nikola Lunic, Executive Director of the Council for Strategic Policies, considers the statement by Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti, regarding the Ground Safety Zone (GSZ) needing to return to a five-kilometer width and to its pre-2001 state, when there were no members of the Serbian Army there, as purely populist and aimed at Kosovo's electorate. At the same time, Lunic points out that Kurti deliberately ignored the reasons why the Serbian Army was allowed to enter the GSZ in the first place.

As Lunic explained to Kosovo Online, NATO command, together with KFOR command, allowed the Serbian Army to take positions in the GSZ due to terrorist attacks happening in the area.

"After the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement, the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac carried out over 1,100 terrorist attacks and provocations, resulting in the deaths of over 34 people, and some of the missing are still being searched for as that terrorist organization also abducted people. Seeing the situation that could escalate, NATO assessed that it would calm down if the Serbian Army took positions in the Ground Safety Zone. And that is what happened. Therefore, Kurti should focus more on coexistence and ensuring that people feel like they live in a free and safe country, rather than initiating the withdrawal of the Serbian Army from the GSZ. The Serbian Army will only leave if this is agreed with KFOR, not with the temporary authorities in Pristina," Lunic said.

He emphasized that the Serbian Army in the GSZ has joint patrols with KFOR and regularly informs KFOR about its units, positions, and all activities related to the safety of the local population.

"At this moment, we have excellent cooperation with the KFOR mission, always working on transparency, reliability, and trust. Our relations are completely transparent, practically a partnership, unlike with Pristina. The now-former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has stated several times that NATO explicitly opposes the formation of Kosovo's armed forces. All police forces present in northern Kosovo, as he said, should work exclusively in close cooperation with KFOR, but they don't and continue to work with their bilateral partners to establish Kosovo's armed forces," Lunic noted.

Expressing his opinion on the need for changes in the GSZ, the Kosovo Prime Minister accused Belgrade of bringing artillery, additional troops, and anti-aircraft systems into this five-kilometer zone, but our interlocutor says that KFOR has information on everything happening in the GSZ.

"The information is completely transparent regarding how many personnel are in temporary bases in the GSZ and which units are present there. These forces are exclusively for the security of the population living there and nothing else. We don't have forces there intended for invasion or war. Serbia's strategic interest is to maintain peace and stability throughout the Balkans, especially in the Western Balkans region. And we are trying to achieve this through transparency, not only toward NATO but also the United Nations, which has effectively mandated the NATO alliance to establish the international forces known as KFOR, as well as with all international community partners involved in moderating relations between Belgrade and Pristina," Lunic emphasized.

When asked whether Kurti's "initiative" would gain approval from someone in the West, our interlocutor says that Kurti has long since become an irrelevant political interlocutor for the West because he doesn't heed advice, and with such inflammatory statements, he can only win a slightly larger percentage of the electorate.

"He clearly is not working on improving living conditions for minority communities that would allow for an acceptable life in Kosovo and Metohija. Imposing such living conditions that cause minority communities to leave Kosovo and Metohija is defined in the UN's Genocide Convention, and that is a simple fact," Lunic concluded.