Rajic: The aim of the actions of Kurti and Svecla is to undermine the dialogue and provoke an armed conflict

Political commentator Predrag Rajic said for Kosovo Online that Albin Kurti's goal was to undermine the entire negotiation process, provoke an armed conflict, and drag Serbia into a conflict with NATO.

Rajic thus commented on today's threats by Kosovo's Interior Minister Xhelal that President Aleksandar Vucic would be arrested if he came to Kosovo without notice and permission from the Pristina institutions, as well as today's arrests of three Serbs in the north, just a few days after Kurti had said from Brussels to the Serb List that they would "suffer and pay".

Rajic sees the new messages from Pristina and the actions of the Kosovo Police as a continuation of provocations by Kurti’s administration, which are aimed both at the official Belgrade and at the Serbs living in Kosovo.

"We also know that there were similar decisions and bans before, and this is an attempt, I would say, on the one hand, to score some points with the more extreme Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija and to realize some kind of political gain by radicalizing the situation in that part of the Albanian political spectrum. On the other hand, of course, this further antagonizes the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija and in the rest of Serbia, because, of course, Kurti's goal is not to reach any dialogue or agreement.  His goal is to undermine the entire negotiation process and to provoke an armed conflict, in connection with this we have this series of arrests in Kosovo and Metohija. Kurti obviously wants to bring the situation to a boil, in order to prepare the ground for an attempt at some new ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from northern Kosovo.  Serbia would not allow that. And Kurti's ultimate goal is a direct conflict between Serbia and NATO, that is, to repeat the year 1999. Everything he does should be seen through that prism, and all his moves will be clear when they are put together in that mosaic," Rajic said.

Rajic sees the series of new provocations by Pristina as Kurti's desire to provoke a war directly, as he tried last year on several occasions with license plates and identity cards, and today with the arrests of the Serbs both south and north of the Ibar.

"He does this continuously, apparently, considering that now is the political moment for him to realize his chauvinistic and megalomaniac goals, because he estimates that the international community may be ready to symbolically sanction him personally and his associates, but not the so-called  Kosovo. He knows that until the sanctioning of the so-called  Kosovo, he will not suffer any political consequences in Kosovo itself. He is personally a fanatic who is ready for a lot, and it is not a problem for him to put up with some diplomatic and political tricks, but some kind of political revenge. He will not tolerate that and is ready to go to an even higher level of escalation in that sense," Rajic believes.

He adds that he does not see "the will of the international community to directly punish Kurti for his misdeeds", but only sees declarative support for dialogue and sometimes declarative condemnations of Kurti's actions.

"As long as there is no transition from words to actions, there will be no movement, I'm afraid, and I think that some kind of mutually acceptable solution that should be the result of this dialogue will be very far away," he said.