Thread by @UnaHajdari

There’s been a lot of disinfo around the ongoing Kosovo-Serbia crisis so here are a couple key developments you should keep straight 🧵:

The heads of the technical teams in the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia are meeting on Wednesday in Brussels to discuss possible solutions.

…according to EEAS spokesperson Peter Stano. Earlier, it was rumored/reported that Kurti and Vucic would meet in person. That still hasn’t been ruled out, but it hasn’t been confirmed either. Today, NATO/KFOR troops increased their presence and patrols in the north of Kosovo.

…and elsewhere. NATO helicopters are also present across Kosovo. The situation is also being monitored by the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, which has a body that’s responsible for the implementation of the dialogue. Special Units of the Kosovo police are also there.

Kosovo police say 10 armored vehicles are on the paths toward the Jarinje and Brnjak borders, not including police transport cars. Over the past week, the barricades set up in the north expanded to the point where police have to walk around 3km when changing shifts every 12 hrs.

Serbia deployed four armored vehicles approx 2 km from the Jarinje crossing (on the Serbian side) on Monday. The key development happened on Sunday, when old Yugoslav Orao warplanes flew close to the border.

This is the first time Serbian military planes approached the border of Kosovo since the withdrawal of the Serbian/Yugoslav troops in 1999 following the NATO bombing. The Kumanovo Agreement signed at the time and still in force sets out a “25 km air safety zone and a 5 km ground

…safety zone around Kosovo’s borders.” That means that Serbia can not cross Kosovo’s borders or fly over Kosovo without activating a NATO response. This is the closest they have come without violating the agreement, and KFOR experts would say Serbia would have to notify

…KFOR before Sunday’s development. The other piece of news was the visit of Serbian defense minister Nebojsa Stefanovic and Russian ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Harchenko to the garrison in Raška, close to the Jarinje border crossing.

This is not the first time a Serbian official visits the garrison in Raška to fire up tensions — current Minister of Interior and former defense minister Aleksandar Vulin has done it in the past. The base is used for training.

Unlike certain Serbian media reports, Kosovo is allowed to send its police forces to the north without NATO approval, but not its army. The main point is both sides are flexing their muscles within the legal limits, so the chance of a government-led escalation is highly unlikely.

However, moves likes the ones listed here could agitate and provoke civilians, such as the hundreds of Kosovo Serbs protesting at the barricades. Finally, for those invoking the March incidents in 2004: NATO/KFOR suffered a severe blow to its credibility at the time for allowing

…clashes between civilians to go as far as they did. The example instead should be 2011, where NATO took over the border crossings and intervened to minimize the tensions. The chain of command/approval for action has significantly changed since 2004, when approval

…from NATO members/contributing missions was required for NATO/KFOR to become involved. Now that isn’t the case. So while there is a real possibility of escalation, everyone is actively engaged in preventing it.

It’s important to remember that a center set up to issue license plates was burned down in Zubin Potok and a civil registry office torched in Zvecan (both in northern Kosovo). A sign that individuals hyped up by all this could actually lead to casualties (none so far thankfully).