Several parallel municipalities of Serbia, as well as its post and tax offices, were closed on Wednesday in ten municipalities of Kosovo, on the south side of the Ibar River.
Kosovo Police said the aim of the operation, at the request of the Ministry of Local Government Administration, was to disrupt Serbia's "illegal services" in Kosovo.
The Basic Prosecution Office in Pristina said, on the other hand, that it did not authorize the Kosovo Police to carry out this operation, as, according to it, there was no official request.
Police actions were taken in the municipalities of Lipjan, Obiliq, Pristina, Fushë Kosovë/Kosovo Polje, Vushtrri, Novo Brdo, Kamenica, Viti, Rahovec and Skenderaj.
Kosovo's Minister of Internal Affairs, Xhelal Sveçla, said that with this action "the era of Serbia's parallel and criminal municipalities and institutions in the Republic of Kosovo ends."
In the video he shared on social media, Kosovo's Minister of Local Government Administration, Elbert Krasniqi, was also seen saying that "as of today, Serbia's 28 parallel, criminal municipalities in Kosovo and their five districts are finally closed."
Authorities in Kosovo say that the work of these Serbian institutions, which have been in operation since the post-war period in 1999, is "illegal", and began closing them early last year.
Kosovo will hold parliamentary elections on February 9 and is in the midst of an electoral campaign.
In Serbia, Prime Minister Miloš Vučević said that the "development of the situation" in Kosovo is being followed carefully.
"We will take all measures to protect the Serbian population from the new attacks of Albin Kurti [Prime Minister of Kosovo], who, apparently, has turned his pre-election campaign into a continuation of the mistreatment of our people," said Vučević.
Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric described the latest action by Kosovo authorities as a "dangerous escalation".
"These aggressive moves are not only an attack on institutions, but also an open attempt to undermine the collective rights and identity of Serbs in Kosovo," Djuric wrote on social media.
He said that the international community should not remain silent, but "protect the rights of Serbs in Kosovo."
The Director of the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia, Petar Petkovic - who was in Brussels, where the first meeting of the joint Kosovo-Serbia Commission for Missing Persons was supposed to be held - said that he "abandoned that meeting" due to the events in Kosovo.
"Kurti does not want dialogue, but violence," he told reporters in Brussels.
Asked if the meeting on the missing was held, Petkovic said: "Of course not. The issue of the missing is important... but Kurti has stifled the dialogue, he has stifled today's meeting."
He said that since the closure of Serbian institutions on Wednesday, over 1,100 people have been left without jobs, but said he assures them that Serbia will continue to pay them.
In a statement to Radio Free Europe, the US Embassy in Pristina said that the closure of Serbian-run institutions "directly and negatively impacts the citizens of Kosovo - ethnic Serbs and other communities - and could undermine Kosovo's aspirations to join the Euro-Atlantic community."
"These actions, contrary to our best advice, weaken trust in the relationship and limit our ability to help Kosovo secure a better and brighter future for all its citizens," according to a spokesperson for the US Embassy in Kosovo.
He said the US is continuing to monitor the situation on the ground.
A European Union spokesperson said, on the other hand, that the closure of Serbian-backed structures in the middle of the election campaign "contradicts Kosovo's obligations to the European Union" within the framework of the process of normalizing relations with Serbia.
"The status of the structures supported by Serbia is expected to be resolved in the EU-facilitated dialogue," he said.
For Serbian political scientist Ognjen Gogić, the action of closing Serbian institutions in areas south of the Ibar River is a "pre-election campaign" by Kurti's party, the Vetëvendosje Movement.
"The action was accompanied by a video clip of Minister Svečla, in which he says that Serbia's presence in Kosovo has ended... according to him, a parallel and illegal presence. They cannot show anything else as a result, so this [the closure of Serbian institutions] is part of their campaign," Gogić tells Radio Free Europe.
He adds that the ruling party "is also politically instrumentalizing the Kosovo Police to campaign."
Gogić also links the closure of almost all Serbian institutions south of the Ibar River to the coming to power of the new American administration. According to him, the Kosovo authorities want to "carry out such actions before Donald Trump enters the White House."
Gogić emphasizes that Serbia's institutions in Kosovo will not be abolished until official Belgrade decides to do so, but does not rule out the possibility that their employees will be prosecuted.
In July 2024, the Ferizaj Prosecution Office questioned employees of the provisional municipal authority of Shtërpcë, under suspicion of "undermining the constitutional order of Kosovo".
Civil society representatives previously told Radio Free Europe that other workers at institutions funded by Serbia's budget could now face similar charges.
Kosovo Police closed the Tax Administration in North Mitrovica on January 8, which operated within the Serbian system, due to, as it was said, "illegal activities", as well as the Serbian insurance company "Dunav Osiguranje", due to suspicions that it was operating without a license.
Kosovo began closing Serbian institutions as early as January 2024, initially closing down the provisional municipal bodies of Dragash, Suhareka, Prizren, and Rahovec, which were located south of the Ibar River.
Then the provisional municipal bodies of Peja, Istog, Klina, Skenderaj were closed, as well as those in the municipalities in the north: North Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposaviq.
Meanwhile, the branches of the Serbian Post in northern Kosovo, the vault of the National Bank of Serbia in Leposavic, the Postal Savings Bank, the Office for Kosovo of the Government of Serbia, the Directorate of the Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, the Kosovo-Mitrovicë Administrative District, and the Center for Social Work in Vushtrri were also closed.
All these institutions with thousands of employees operated in the Serbian system. REL (A2 Televizion)
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