Kosovo's customs and police officers, together with members of the European Union-led Rule of Law mission called Eulex, were deployed at border crossings in norther Kosovo on Friday morning, the country's Interior Minister Bajram Rexepi said later on Friday.
The operation of the deployment was carried out smoothly shortly before eight o'clock when Kosovan police and customs officers, together with Eulex representatives were transferred by helicopters from a nearby NATO-led KFOR base in the village of Leposavic to the border posts of Jarinje and Brnjak.
According to Rexhepi, Eulex staff will carry out the operational part of the job, while Kosovo officers will have a technical role.
Between 0700 and 0800 hrs Serbs in the village of Leposavic rallied in front of the barbed wire which KFOR troops set up around the Jarinje border crossing in the previous evening.
Several hundred Serbs are estimated to be protesting peacefully at the both sides of the two border posts against the arrival of Kosovan police and customs officers. Some of the protesters stayed the entire night at the barricades.
The Pristina-based media reported about Serbs in the northern part of the city of Mitrovica gathering near the bridge across the Ibar River dividing the city into the northern Serb-populated half and the southern part mainly populated by Kosovo Albanians.
Serb leader in Mitrovica Krstimir Pantic said that Serbs were protesting as they did not want to be integrated in the Kosovo institutions.
Media have reported that the situation in Mitrovica is tense but with no major incidents.
