KFOR troops block road near administrative line crossing


SOURCE: BETA
LEPOSAVIĆ -- Members of the NATO troops in Kosovo, KFOR, late on Monday blocked an "alternative road" connecting northern Kosovo and central Serbia.


KFOR's Polish troops are preventing trucks carrying over three tons of commercial goods from traveling on the Raška-Tresava road.

Passenger vehicles are allowed to pass, according to reports.

Most TV from the town of Zvečan said late on Monday that municipal leadership from Leposavić and Kosovska Mitrovica met with a KFOR officer, Adolf Konrad, to seek explanation for the troops' actions.

Leposavić councilor Bojan Jakovljević accused them of "directly siding with Priština" by blocking the road.

"We demanded that trucks that bring in goods for stores in the north of the province be allowed to move freely, since there are already shortages there," he stated.

Jakovljević added that the people and their leaders cannot accept the closing of alternative roads, or any intention to make that a tool that will allow the ethnic Albanian customs to take hold on the Brnjak and Jarinje administrative crossings between central Serbia and Kosovo.

This councilor noted that Serbs, who are a majority population in the area, voted in a referendum to reject the authority of the Kosovo institutions.

The KFOR officer did not make any statements for the local television outlets. The Leposavić leadership believes that the closing of the road on Monday and some other similar roads came "in response to the blockade that Serbs put up late last week".

The Serbs are manning that barricade in shifts.