The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, met on Thursday with the ambassador of Russia in this country, Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko, with whom, as he said, he talked about the situation in Kosovo and the possibility of “opening by force” the bridge over the Iber River.

In a post on his Instagram account, Vučić wrote that he had “an open and honest conversation with Ambassador Botsan-Kharchenko on all topics of interest to Serbia and the Russian Federation, as well as Serbia’s positions regarding current global geopolitical developments”.

“I expressed deep concern for the possible consequences that the forced opening of the Iber bridge could have, as well as for other planned activities of the Pristina regime, directed against the Serbian people in Kosovo,” wrote Vučić, but without giving details or sources of information about the plans he mentioned.

Vučić also thanked Russia for its continued diplomatic support for UN Resolution 1244, as the only international guarantee for, as he said, the survival of Serbs in Kosovo.

A day earlier in Belgrade, Vucic discussed the same topics with NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Political and Security Affairs, Boris Ruge.

The government of the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, announced already in the middle of July that it intends to open the main bridge over the Iber, which divides Mitrovica into the south with an Albanian majority and the north with a Serbian majority.

The bridge is currently only open for pedestrians, although it has been agreed to open it for traffic as part of the dialogue for the normalization of Kosovo-Serbia relations.

But the QUINT nations – the US, UK, Germany, France and Italy – announced on August 2 that they do not support opening the bridge to vehicular traffic for now, saying it could lead to new tensions in Kosovo.