Vucevic: Serbia to adequately respond to Turkey's military deal with Pristina

BELGRADE - Serbian Defence Minister Milos Vucevic said on Tuesday Serbia would adequately respond to a military agreement between Turkey and the so-called Kosovo.

Responding to questions from reporters at the Topcider army barracks in Belgrade, Vucevic said the deal was a continuation of Turkey's cooperation with the so-called Kosovo.

"The NATO alliance does not cooperate institutionally with the so-called Kosovo Security Force and is not participating as an alliance in a transformation of what they call the Kosovo Security Force into a Kosovo armed force - which, by the way, is contrary even to the constitution of the so-called Kosovo - but certain member states are strong contributors in that process and I would say that Turkey is perhaps the leader there," Vucevic said.

"We are concerned and we are watching closely what is going on, we see that some new areas of what they call bilateral cooperation are opening up, and the Serbian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence - and Serbia as a state - will have and adequate response, not only politically. We will, of course adapt our capacities to all challenges, risks and even dangers to our fatherland. Because this raises the question of for whom and for what the so-called Kosovo army is arming itself. When you look at the ethnic composition, it is another de facto Albanian army," Vucevic said.

He said acquisitions of arms by Pristina were contrary to the 1999 Military Technical Agreement and UNSCR 1244 and represented a "direct violation of all norms of international law."