BELGRADE (Serbia), March 27 (SeeNews) – Kosovo police said it arrested and deported the head of Serbia's government office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Djuric, for entering Kosovo territory without permission on Monday.
Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic dismissed the accusations of the Kosovo authorities and called the arrest a "brutal provocation” and a “criminal act", because Djuric had applied for entry into Kosovo well in advance of his visit, according to a statement issued by the Serbian government late on Monday.
Djuric was detained by police in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo. After being interrogated, Djuric was escorted out of the territory of Kosovo, Kosovo police said in a statement earlier that day.
Marko Djuric is also head of the Serbian negotiation team at the normalisation talks with Kosovo. Concerning the continuation of the dialogue bewteen Belgrade and Pristina for normalisation of ties, "it is absurd to talk about it today," Vucic said in the Serbian government statement.
"The essence of what happened today was that terrorists in police uniforms attacked a peaceful meeting of Serb citizens within the internal dialogue on the Kosovo problem," Vucic said.
Kosovo police said it acted according to the decision of the ministry of foreign affairs to refuse the entry into the Kosovo territory for some Serbian officials, including Djuric and Serbian minister of defence Aleksandar Vulin.
Last week, the European Union (EU) said no progress was achieved during the meeting of Serbian and Kosovo government representatives within the EU facilitated dialogue for the normalisation of ties. The meeting focused on the establishment of a community of Serb municipalities in Kosovo, energy issues, the construction of a new bridge in Mitrovica, freedom of movement and integrated management of border crossings.
The Kosovo authorities refuse to implement the provisions of the Brussels agreement on the formation of a community of Serb municipalities in Kosovo, the general secretary of Serbia's president's office, Nikola Selakovic, said in a statement issued by Serbia's government office for Kosovo and Metohija late on Monday.
Selakovic said he was standing next to Djuric during the time of the arrest but Kosovo policemen did not try to detain him. During the intervention of Kosovo police, the agriculture minister of the northern autonomous province of Vojvodina, Nenad Rikalo, and the deputy director of the government office for Kosovo and Metohija, Zeljko Jovic, were injured, Selakovic said.
Belgrade does not recognise the independence of Kosovo, Serbia's former southern province predominantly populated by ethnic Albanians. Kosovo proclaimed independence from Serbia in February 2008.