Srpska Lista sought a meeting, Ulutas raised the possibility of a reversal<\/p>\n
Srpska Lista requested an urgent meeting with KFOR commander Major General Ozkan Ulutas over the changes at the bridge. Ulutas received the party\u2019s president, Zlatan Elek, at the Film City base, joined by deputy leader Igor Simic, lawmaker Jovana Radosavljevic and the mayor of North Mitrovica, Milan Radojevic.<\/p>\n
At that meeting, Ulutas said the optimization of KFOR\u2019s force posture could be reversed if developments on the ground required it, and said the mission still holds the role of first responder on the security of the Visoki Decani monastery.<\/p>\n
Radojevic has taken a sharper tone, and done so publicly. At a public hearing on the draft local budget, asked by residents about the withdrawal from the bridge, he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cOpening the main bridge is something Albin Kurti has in his program. If KFOR moves its troops and allows the main bridge to open for traffic, that will mean a victory for Albin Kurti and will put KFOR on their side. KFOR has held to neutrality for 27 years, preserving peace and stability between the two divided towns.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayor also rejected the assessment underpinning the mission\u2019s move.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expressed our concern. We said that if this happens, there will be major security problems. We do not agree with the assessment that the security situation has improved. On the contrary, you live in this municipality, you face these problems every day, you see how Kosovo Police officers behave. We cannot say that Kosovo Police officers are neutral and professional at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Radojevic added that municipal leadership will keep talking to the KFOR commander to try to prevent such a decision from taking effect in practice, noting that carabinieri remain on the ground and that traffic between the two parts of the city already runs over several other bridges.<\/p>\n
What has not come out of Brussels is a timeline. The decision on force posture rests with NATO, and EULEX, according to the spokesperson, has been duly informed of the change and continues its cooperation with the Kosovo Police and KFOR. The political assessment that the conditions have been met is now on the record. The next step belongs to whoever sets the date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Srpska Lista sought a meeting, Ulutas raised the possibility of a reversal Srpska Lista requested an urgent meeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,73,70087,70085,5197,70086],"class_list":["post-147408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-european-union","tag-ibar-bridge","tag-kfor","tag-kosovo","tag-kosovska-mitrovica"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117111883122135678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}