Tirana: Albania and Croatia have asked Nato to revise plans for its peace-keeping mission in Kosovo, arguing that nationalist rhetoric by Serb politicians threatens to destabilise the region scarred by 1990s wars.
Relations between Serbia and its former province Kosovo came under renewed strain since Belgrade sent a train painted with the slogan “Kosovo is Serbia” to the border and Kosovo police said it would stop it from entering its territory.
Serbia’s president has accused the authorities in Pristina of wanting to start a war, while his Kosovo counterpart has said Serbia could use model of Russia in Crimea to annex the northern part of Kosovo.
Mimi Kodheli and Damir Krsticevic, defence ministers of alliance members Albania and Croatia, wrote to Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemning “nationalistic rhetoric from Serb politicians and concrete actions on border”.
The ministers wrote those actions aimed at “encroaching the sovereignty of the Republic of Kosovo and destabilising the security situation in the Western Balkans”, according to a statement from Kodheli’s office.
“Both ministers asked that the Operational Plan of the peace-keeping mission in Kosovo be revised following the latest developments there,” the Albanian statement added.
The integration of the western Balkan countries into the EU and Nato is seen by the two institutions as a way to guarantee peace in a region still scarred by the wars that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
The ministers told Stoltenberg that Albania and Croatia backed the transformation of the Kosovo Security Force, which is lightly armed and engages in crisis response, civil protection and ordnance disposal, into the a fully fledged army.
