Kosovo’s Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli called on Serbia not to politicise a big police operation on Tuesday against crime and smuggling in northern Kosovo, the Beta news agency reported.

He said today’s activity aimed at arresting members of a network dealing with counter-band, bribe, abuse of office and other ways of organised crime.

The Kosovo police deployed the ROSU special forces unit to the north early morning on Tuesday in an operation, as they said, against members of organised crime groups. A statement said that 19 police officers and nine civilians had been arrested. The Customs Service said some of its officers were in custody.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic immediately ordered all Army of Serbia (VS) units to go to full combat readiness because of the ROSU operation in the north.

 During the operation, two (the UN mission in Kosovo) UNMIK employes were arrested. The mission statement called for the immediate release of the UN staff members. UNMIK chief Zahir Tanin added that “any harm to UN staff will be met with the highest degree of diplomatic and international legal responses”. “I urge all parties to abide by the principles of the rule of law and dignity for all to life and liberty, and to help restore calm and security in the area,” 

Later on Tuesday, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic told the Parliament ROSU units were withdrawing from the north because of the international community reaction.

“The Kosovo police is undertaking an operation in northern Kosovo to arrest (some) people, including police officers, a part of the network” involved in organised crime, Pacolli wrote on his Facebook profile.

He added that “the operation was prepared for months as a part of Kosovo’s efforts to strengthen the rule of law and order on its whole territory.”

“We saw similar operations in other Kosovo’s places in the last several days,” Pacolli said.
He condemned Belgrade’s decision to raise combat alert “due to a simple police operation against organised crime.”

“I call on Serbia not to politically abuse a simple police operation. I call on them to support the fight against organised crime,” Pacolli added.

In the meantime, Maja Kocijancic, the spokesperson for the European Union High Representative  Federica Mogherini who mediate the Belgrade – Pristina talks on the normalisation of relations, said police operations should not weaken the efforts to normalise those relations.