Serbian troops on heightened alert at Kosovo border

Government in Belgrade accuses neighbouring Kosovo of ‘provocations’ by sending special police units to border.

Serbian troops have been on a heightened state of alert after the government in Belgrade accused neighbouring Kosovo of “provocations” by sending special police units to the border.

Already tense relations between Serbia and its former breakaway region have grown worse since the ethnic Albanian-led government there despatched the police units to an area mainly populated by minority ethnic Serbs, who reject the authority of the government in Kosovo’s capital Pristina.

The deployment came as hundreds of ethnic Serbs have staged daily protests against a decision to require drivers with Serbian registration plates to put on temporary ones when entering Kosovo – a “reciprocal measure”, according to Pristina.