Serb Officers ‘Will Return to Kosovo’s Police’

osovo’s Interior Minister Zenun Pajaziti says Serb officers will return to Kosovo’s Police force now that the European Union law-and-order mission, EULEX, has deployed.

Ethnic Serb police officers left their posts in protest against Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February of this year.

However, Pajaziti believes that they will all return to their jobs, with the assistance of EULEX.

“EULEX is a very important mission which will help in this. EULEX is also a good chance to improve the communication between us and the police,” he said.

Pajaziti also stated that the authority of Kosovo’s institutions, emphasising that of the police, is under one command and control.

“Kosovo has only one police and one chain of command. In the next couple of days, together with the head of the police, we will name the regional commander, who will be named from our institutions and this will be a good chance to portray the prominence and full independence of our institutions,” stated the minister.

Serb police have said that they will only report to EULEX officials, avoiding any communication with Kosovar authorities.

Earlier a EULEX police spokesman said there will be only legal system in operation throughout Kosovo, suggesting any parallel structures in ethnic Serb areas will not be tolerated.

Kosovo Serbs were reluctant to accept the deployment of the EU’s new law-and-order mission, EULEX, despite Belgrade’s willingness to give the mission the green light, said a leader from Kosovo’s Serb-dominated north, Nebojsa Jovic.

“We will not physically resist their (EULEX’s) arrival, but we ask them to postpone their decision to deploy in the north for a while,” he said.

However last week as EULEX began deploying across Kosovo, the leaders of Serbia’s Radical Party and the Democratic Party of Serbia in Kosovo called on Serbs not to physically oppose its arrival.