Serbian Security Strategy Lists Kosovo Among Key Threats

Serbia's latest National Security Strategy lists separatism, extremism, recognition of Kosovo's independence and attempts to revise Bosnia's 1995 Dayton Agreement as some of the main security threats to the country.

The strategy, published on the website of the Defence Ministry, says the status of Kosovo, inter-ethnic tensions and the migrant crisis are having the most impact on the country and the region.

"Separatist tendencies in the region are a real threat to security," it says, placing particular emphasis on "the problem of unlawfully unilaterally declared territorial independence … of Kosovo and Metohija", as Serbia refers to its former province, which declared independence in 2008.

The strategy complained of Kosovo's "non-implementation of the Brussels Agreement, the slow establishment of democratic standards in Kosovo and Metohija, disregard for the basic human rights of the Serbs and other non-Albanian populations, the usurpation and destruction of their property and cultural and historical heritage, and radical Islamism".

On Bosnia, the document also warns against attempts to revise the 1995 Dayton Agreement that ended the 1992-5 war there, which it said "have a negative impact on stability and security in the region".

Naming no names, it added that in "some countries of the region, there is a tendency, as well as attempts, to achieve a high a degree of the national unification of the ethnic space and implement 'greater states' projects, which would include revisions to and changes to internationally established state borders".

The strategy says Serbia's progress in its EU accession process is positively affecting the country's political, economic and social stability, but that Belgrade must also continue to...