‘Creation of Kosovo army is illegal & dangerous move that can lead to war’

If Pristina decides to push the army into northern Kosovo, which is mostly populated by Serbs, Serbia will have to act to protect its people, filmmaker Boris Malagurski told RT.

As the UN Security Council was debating Kosovo’s move to transform its security forces into a professional military on Monday, Russia and Serbia decried the act as being without any legal basis.

“The EU reaction to the decision by Pristina cannot be described as [anything] other than toothless. This irresponsible policy has crossed the line,” Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzya said after the UNSC meeting.

READ MORE: Kosovo's army causes a split in the West but who's to blame?

RT spoke to Serbian-Canadian filmmaker, producer and screenwriter Boris Malagurski who says Pristina’s decision runs the risk of igniting another war in the Balkans.

RT: Serbia and Russia say the creation of a Kosovo army violates resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. How do you see it?

Boris Malagurski: Serbia and Russia see it this way. But it is also the way that the so-called Constitution of the so-called Republic of Kosovo sees it. If you look at their own constitution it forbids the formation of an army, and this is also contrary to the UN Security Council resolution 1244 which is still in effect, it is working still until a new resolution is passed. It is illegal not only to Serbia, Russia, the UN but it is also illegal according to those who have created it, their own constitution… And this is a very dangerous move because you have violations of law on several fronts.

RT: Do you expect this to escalate tensions in the region?

BM: It is a very dangerous situation. And we had many conflicts when it came to Kosovo in the 1990s. NATO intervened and illegally bombed the sovereign state. They have claimed that was to stop the humanitarian crisis. Serbia was claiming it had the aim to separate Kosovo from Serbia and turn it into an independent state. And what we’ve actually seen happen was the realization of what Serbia was warning the world as we saw a province of a sovereign country being detached from it in 2008 when Kosovo declared independence contrary to international law, contrary to UN Security Council resolution 1244 and yet it was recognized by many Western countries, they supported this illegal act.

And those same countries are now are supporting the illegal formation of the army. That is very dangerous, because we’ve seen many escalations in the past couple of weeks.

Not only this formation of the army, but the Pristina authorities in Kosovo increased taxes to 100 percent to products coming from central Serbia. And many Kosovo Serbs as we speak are protesting every day against these taxes. And now with the formation of the army, it is very dangerous because if Pristina decides to push that army into northern Kosovo that is mostly populated by Serbs, the Serbian president has said that ‘we will not watch this.’

Possibly, Serbia will have to act to protect its people and if that happens, if Kosovo decides to opt for the military solution to gain control of all of Kosovo – because it does not currently control all of Kosovo – that could plunge the region into a war.

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