16 September, law and order in north

12/09/2011 20:10

The Kosovo Interior Minister, Bajram Rexhepi declared that Northern Kosovo might be swept by Serbian protests in the next days.

But this reaction, according to him, will not set back the Kosovo authorities from establishing Kosovan police and customs agents in border checkpoints 1 and 31.

During a meeting at the Parliamentary Commission for Security, Mr. Rexhepi declared that the plan for this operation is in its final phase.

Part of this plan are the Kosovo authorities, KFOR, EULEX and other international institutions, including the US Embassy.

“We have information that the sportsmen, fire fighters and artists will also protest, but this will not set us back. We will continue our mission for returning law and order in north”, Rexhepi declared.

Since this is the first time that Mr. Rexhepi is reporting about the action in north, in front of the Security Commission, he unfolded some details.

The head of the operation is prime Minister Hashim Thaci, while the operative plan was directed by him and the Police Director, Shpend Maxhuni.

Rexhepi admitted that the operation was planned in a very short period. The Special Unit, according to him, has had only two hours time for preparation.

“This happened due to the fact that our conversations are being spied and we didn’t want to fail. You know that if we had discussed this for longer, the Serbs would be out with the roadblocks and we would have failed”, Rexhepi declared.

This presentation did not pass without objections from the opposition. The Interior Minister declared that they have consulted the maps, but he also admitted that 70% of the Police agents were not familiar with the northern territory.

He also declared that during the operation of July 25, five Kosovo Police agents were wounded. Besides the late Enver Zymberi, who was killed by a sniper, one agent was wounded by a hand grenade and three others were hit by stones.

As for the future steps, a confidential report that was handled over to the Commission for Security states that Kosovo Police is focused on the arrest of the suspects for the murder of Enver Zymberi and the destruction of the border checkpoint in Jarinje.

The police has identified 20 organizations and extreme criminal groups who are making the northern situation tenser.

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