What is said in Hashim Thaçi's letter about the KSF in the north?

Kosovo's pledge not to send its Security Force to the north of the country, without the prior consent of NATO, is valid even today, when the mandate of this force has changed.

So says Besfort Rrecaj, professor of International Law at the University of Pristina.

According to him, unilateral declarations are issued by states and as such are considered binding.

"Kosovo must respect it, as long as it is not changed by any prime minister or any other representative of the state of Kosovo", says Rrecaj.

In 2013, the then Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, in an exchange letter with the then head of NATO, Anders fogh rasmussen, vowed that the KSF will not be deployed in the north - an area inhabited by a majority of Serbs - without prior agreement with the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR.

"On behalf of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, I give a guarantee that the KSF will undertake a mission in the north of Kosovo only with the prior consent of KFOR", says the letter signed by Thaçi and dated April 19, 2013.

The north of Kosovo is often a hotbed of tension, as the majority Serbian population - led by Belgrade - hardly obeys the Kosovo authorities.

The letter of exchange with NATO is believed to have been made in an effort to keep the situation there under control.

But, more than a decade later, there are voices saying that this pledge as such is no longer valid, because the status of the KSF is no longer the same.

"For NATO, the KSF has not changed, but we have changed [its mission through legal changes]", says Avni Arifi, former chief of staff of former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj.

According to him, since 2018, the KSF has secured the military mandate, which it did not have at the time when the letter of exchange with NATO was made.

Why is there talk now about FSK North?

After the November 29 incident in Zubin Potok, where a powerful explosion damaged the critical Ibër-Lepenci canal, KFOR said that Kosovo institutions have asked for authorization for the possible deployment of the KSF to the affected area, but that the mission has rejected it.

"The KFOR commander has not given such authorization, based on his security assessment and the actions that have already been taken by KFOR," said this mission in a written response.

REL requested a comment on this matter from the spokesperson of the Government of Kosovo, Përparim Kryeziu, but did not receive it.

A day earlier, Prime Minister Albin Kurti did not confirm that he requested such permission, but only said that "our army - based on the 2013 agreement - cannot go to the north".

"Therefore, the situation there is not the same as in other parts of our country", said Kurti in a press conference.

Considering it harmful to the country, he sent Thaçi's letter to the prosecutor's office in 2021, but no decision was made regarding it.

That same year, during a visit to Pristina, the then head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said that the agreement on the KSF in the north remains valid.

"When you sign an agreement, it continues [even] when you have new people in responsible positions," said Stoltenberg, commenting on Kurti's decision to send the letter to the prosecutor's office.

"The FSK now has a military mandate"

Arifi, who served in Haradinaj's cabinet from 2017 to 2020, says that the Kosovo Security Force, through the law, has secured its military mandate, which it did not have in 2013.

The Assembly of Kosovo, in 2018, approved the legal changes for the transformation of the mandate of the KSF into the army.

The law on the KSF, which entered into force in January 2019, states that this force "protects the sovereignty and territorial integrity, citizens, property and interests of the Republic of Kosovo".

Speaking for Radio Free Europe, Arifi says that, at that time, Kosovo's partner countries asked Haradinaj to renew the agreement on not sending the KSF to the north.

"Haradinaj told them 'no'... 'we consider that [the KSF] should have a full mandate and that the Minister of Defense should be operative in all of Kosovo'." Haradinaj refused, but he said that coordination with NATO is essential and nothing ever happens without coordination with NATO", says Arifi.

According to him, if Prime Minister Kurti is looking for a legal basis to send the KSF north, he has it - starting from the point of view of Kosovo's institutions.

While from NATO's point of view, he says, the mission of the KSF has not changed and remains that of 2008, when it had the mission "to help the civil authorities in response to natural disasters and other emergencies".

"The letter is binding"

Professor Rrecaj disagrees. He says that Thaçi's letter has a binding legal character for Kosovo.

According to him, it is a unilateral statement, but the result of the discussions of the institutional representatives of Kosovo with the representatives of the international community.

Moreover, Rrecaj adds, Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council is still in force and, based on it, the final interpretation of the security situation in Kosovo belongs to KFOR.

"According to the Charter of the United Nations Organization, all states are obliged to respect the resolutions of the Security Council and its decisions. Consequently, this also applies to Kosovo", says Rrecaj.

KFOR was approved by the UN Security Council after the end of the war in 1999.

Its Resolution 1244 authorized UN member states to maintain an international security presence in Kosovo, which today has over 4.400 troops.

KFOR is responsible for the security of Kosovo's borders with Serbia, while the rest of the border line is handled by the Kosovo Police.

Unlike the KSF, the visit of the Kosovo Police to the northern municipalities: North Mitrovica, Zveçan, Zubin Potok and Leposaviq, is not limited, writes REL.