Kosovo Serbs start dismantling barricades in bid to defuse military tensions
euronews.comKosovo Serbs who have been blocking roads in northern Kosovo for 19 days have agreed to start removing barricades from Thursday morning, bowing to calls by the EU and US to defuse tensions.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic who met Serbs from northern Kosovo in the Serbian town of Raska said the process of removing barricades will begin on Thursday morning.
"It is a long process and it will take a while," Vucic said.
He also added that the United States and European Union, which are mediating talks between Belgrade and Pristina to resolve outstanding bilateral issues, have guaranteed that none of the Serbs who set up barricades will be prosecuted.
Removal of the barricades is expected to defuse tensions between Belgrade and Pristina.
For more than 20 years, Kosovo has been a source of tension between the West, which backed its independence, and Russia, which supports Serbia in its efforts to block Kosovo's membership of global organisations including the United Nations.
The United States, NATO and European Union urged maximum restraint in the north of Kosovo, as authorities closed a third border crossing on Wednesday and tensions escalated with local Serbs over its 2008 independence.
NATO's mission in Kosovo, KFOR, said it supported dialogue between all parties to defuse tensions, which have included Serb roadblocks on major arteries by trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles and violent clashes with police.
Serbia put its army on its highest alert on Monday.
The Kremlin, for its part, denied Kosovo interior minister's claims that Russia was influencing Serbia to destabilise Kosovo, saying that Serbia was defending the rights of ethnic Serbs.
A former Kosovo Serb policeman, whose arrest triggered violent protests by Kosovo's Serb
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