Serbia's Covic condemns plans to transform Kosovo Protection Corps
Text of report by Serbian news agency Beta

Pristina-Belgrade, 18 February: The international community has a plan whereby the Kosovo Protection Corps (KZK) TMK in Albanian would grow into a national guard with 3,200 armed men and another 2,000 reserve troops, the informed sources in Pristina told Beta today.

The sources said this is the first phase of transforming the KZK, which emerged from the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (OVK) UCK in Albanian . It is assumed that in the next phase, it will be transformed into the army of an independent Kosovo. Nebojsa Covic, president of the Coordination Centre for Kosovo-Metohija, said the plan of the KZK's transformation, forwarded to Beta, was the work of some individuals in the international missions operating on Kosovo. As he said further, this constituted a flagrant violation of the international documents referring to Kosovo.

"We informed the public nearly two months ago about the things that some individuals in UNMIK UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo are trying to achieve," Covic pointed out.

He emphasized that "this activity is evidently continuing, constituting the most drastic violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1244."

Covic explained in a statement to Beta that the KZK must be reduced in size and cannot be transformed into any military formation, because it had been formed to deal with potential natural disasters.

"The transformation into a national guard of sorts, or anything similar, is an astounding attempt to undermine the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 on Kosovo-Metohija," Covic said.

"Anyone who fears that this formation will grow into the army of an independent Kosovo, which is what some individuals in the Albanian ethnic community are planning, should say so publicly, because this also triggers the question of how a mission that is afraid can continue working and what potential result it can yield sentence as received ," Covic said.

As Covic said, in Kosovo "we are experiencing and witnessing the results of this fear daily, in the form of expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Serbs and non-Albanians".

"Shovels, hoes and construction machinery can, therefore, be the KZK's only weapon," Covic said categorically.