Serbs in north Kosovo leave barricades

Budapest [Hungary], December 30: Barricades set up by Serb militants in northern Kosovo were being abandoned on Thursday evening, following an announcement by Serbian President AleksandarVucic that all of the barriers would be removed within two days.
No one was standing guard at the blockade near the village of Rudare, and the militants' tents were deserted, the Serbian-language news portal kossev.info reported Thursday evening. Elsewhere, the barricade on the Serbian side of the Merdare border crossing was dismantled.
Vucic announcement in the early hours of Thursday marked a climbdown after days of steadily rising tensions in the volatile region of the Balkans. It came after he met representatives of the Kosovo Serbs in the Serbian town of Raska near the border.
Vucic also lifted the heightened alert for the military and police on Thursday, the state news agency Tanjug reported, citing the presidential chancellery. Vucic had justified the move three days ago by citing the events in Kosovo.
EU foreign affairs chief JosepBorrell welcomed the developments.
"Diplomacy prevailed in de-escalating tensions in north Kosovo.
Violence can never be a solution," Borrell wrote on Twitter.
Kosovo Serb militants had set up barricades along the roads to the Brnjak and Jarinje crossings in northern Kosovo. Militants had also blocked roads elsewhere in Serb-majority northern Kosovo.
They were protesting the arrest of a Serb former police officer in the Kosovan police whom the Kosovan authorities say led attacks on election commission officials.
A court in Pristina released the man under house arrest on Wednesday, the Kosovan news portal koha.net reported.
Kosovo, which today is almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians, used to belong to Serbia but has been independent since 2008. Serbia does not accept its independence and claims the territory of the country for itself.
The area north of the divided city of Mitrovica on the river Ibar is almost exclusively inhabited by ethnic Serbs and borders directly on Serbia. Vucic encourages the inhabitants of the area not to recognize the supremacy of the Kosovan state.
Source: Qatar Tribune