Fetoshi: Vučić’s letter to Rutte aims to portray normalization as a threat

Arben Fetoshi, director of the Institute for Hybrid War Studies “Octopus,” has reacted on Facebook to a letter from Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić addressed to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. In the letter, Vučić asked KFOR not to allow the opening of the Ibër Bridge.

Fetoshi described the move as a desperate attempt by Belgrade to preserve the bridge as a political symbol of division and to portray as a threat a development that NATO considers an improvement in security.

“Aleksandar Vučić’s letter to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in which he reportedly asked KFOR to stop the opening of the Ibër Bridge, is Serbia’s frustrated attempt to preserve its political meaning as a symbol of division and to frame as a threat precisely what NATO regards as an improvement in security,” Fetoshi wrote.

According to him, NATO’s decision, described as “concrete progress” in guaranteeing freedom of movement, significantly undermines the narrative of a “repressive Kosovo.” He added that this development makes irreversible the issue of stability, the rule of law, and the free movement of citizens, vehicles, goods, and ideas in the north.

Fetoshi believes that claims of “systematic attacks and ethnic cleansing” against Serbs in Kosovo have been dismantled and are increasingly losing their weight as an “argument” for the strategy of destabilization in the north.

“The ‘Albanian-Serb confrontation’ in the north exists only in the rhetoric of Vučić and his state and paramilitary structures,” he stressed. According to Fetoshi, Kosovo has built and put into operation two bridges over the Ibër River, enabling communication, development, and normalization.

He considered the claim that vehicle traffic over the main bridge would endanger security absurd and instrumental, saying that the argument serves to preserve the division in pursuit of hegemonic aims.

“Vučić also reportedly mentioned regional security. But before linking it to the freedom of vehicles to move across a bridge, he should remember that the criminal and illegal structures that blocked roads and attacked citizens and institutions in the north did not cross the bridge,” Fetoshi wrote.

He added that neither the KFOR attackers who wounded more than 90 soldiers crossed the bridge. According to him, the people who attacked journalists, citizens, and local and international institutions did not cross it either.

Fetoshi also stressed that the planners, organizers, and terrorist attackers in Banjska did not use the bridge even when they fled to seek shelter in Serbia. He also said that the sophisticated weaponry worth millions of euros seized in the north did not cross the bridge.

“The attackers of the Ibër-Lepenc Canal did not cross the bridge. The networks smuggling goods, drugs, and migrants that operated along the border did not pass through the bridge, and the systematic pressure on Kosovo Serbs from Belgrade and illegal structures does not pass through the bridge,” he declared.

For this reason, according to Fetoshi, the bridge is not Vučić’s real problem. The problem, he said, is the infrastructure of destabilization that over the years has been fueled by the symbolism of “division” on the Ibër.

“His strategy needs to project tensions, because tensions keep the narrative of ‘threatened Serbs’ alive. It needs intervention so that, together with his circle, he can benefit from millions of euros that he supposedly allocates to Kosovo Serbs, while using them for his own interests,” Fetoshi wrote.

According to him, this scheme also includes the role of Vučić’s “hero,” Milan Radoičić, as well as the structures that have operated in the north.

Fetoshi said that NATO does not need Vučić’s letters to understand the origin of the security threats in the north. “NATO knows who attacked its soldiers, and it also knows what happened in Banjska. It is fully aware of what weapons arsenal was seized and knows who used the tensions in the north as a political instrument,” he wrote.

“Therefore, with such letters, Vučić merely reveals the perfidious strategy of ‘victimhood as a warning,’ portraying normalization as a threat, freedom of movement as a danger, and the integration of the north as ‘terror against Serbs,’” Fetoshi concluded.