Starovic: The Serbs in Kosovo faced brutal police force; NATO must react

State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense of Serbia, Nemanja Starovic, told Al Jazeera television that what we had witnessed that day in the north of Kosovo had been a unilateral attempt by the Pristina authorities to forcibly install Albanian mayors in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo with a Serbian majority.

"This comes a month after the shameful elections that were organized there, in which only 3 percent of voters participated. The Serbs, therefore, decided to protest peacefully and non-violently against the installation of those mayors. Unfortunately, Serbian citizens faced the brutal force of hundreds of Albanian policemen. I must emphasize that we are talking to the militarized monoethnic Albanian police, that is, their special units. About a dozen Serbs were injured and that is the main reason why our President Aleksandar Vucic decided to put our armed forces on high alert and to order their deployment near the administrative line with Kosovo," Starovic said.

This order, he added, was in line with Serbia's long-term policy, which implied a commitment to preserving peace and stability in the region.

"We are even ready to sacrifice a lot to preserve peace and stability, but we cannot sacrifice one thing, and that is the lives of our people. I think this is a common-sense position that any democratic country in the world would take.
President Vucic appealed to NATO troops to ensure security for all people living in Kosovo. NATO troops in Kosovo have the mandate to preserve the stability, peace, and security of all the people who live there. They must act," Starovic said.

As he concluded, today we had witnessed a unilateral action by Pristina, while Serbia had done nothing to provoke any kind of escalation.