Serbian President Boris Tadic appealed Tuesday on all the inhabitants of Kosovo to stay calm regarding the Kosovo police operation at the administrative border crossing, and underlined that only diplomacy can help resolve problems.

Tadic said that Pristina's actions are meant to establish control over the north of Kosovo and that as such they are absolutely unacceptable.

All those in the international community who might be encouraging the authorities in Pristina to take such actions, as the deploying of members of the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) at the administrative check points, are making a terrible mistake and exposing this part of Europe to immense risk, President Tadic said in Prague.

He underlined that diplomacy is the only means Serbia can use today, and added that Serbia will not make war but that it does warn everyone else that they should restrain from using force.

I call on everybody to stay calm and not to react to any provocation. I call on the people of Serb and Albanian
nationality to stay calm, I call on the Pristina representatives not to take actions of this kind, because such operations are of greatest possible risk, the Serbian president underscored.

Tadic said that any kind of unilateralism threatens to undermine the process of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.

He said he spoke with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton on Tuesday morning and informed her that the whole situation was absolutely unacceptable for Serbia and that any use of force threatened to put an end to the talks between Belgrade and Pristina before they yielded tangible results.

He said he had received assurance that the EU and Brussels would act in accordance with all the standards so far, in a neutral way regarding status, searching for a solution through the dialogue.

Tadic expects the U.S. administration to act the same and believes there is no doubt about that, but he left open the possibility that some people from the U.S. government are encouraging Pristina to make moves like this.

The entire night since the Kosovo special police began the operation to seize two administrative crossings with Serbia the Serbian government worked to defuse the situation, he pointed out.

Pristina's actions threaten to destroy the peace process before it has given results, Tadic warned.

Serbia is willing to take part in the dialogue and peace process because only that can lead to a solution, while actions like this one do not, the president remarked.

There are parties in Serbia who believe the country should enter a new conflict and start a new war and cycle of violence, Tadic stated.

He is, however, convinced that the majority of the Serbian people do not support that view.

Precisely the opposite is needed, he said. Serbia should continue to take part in the talks and contribute to peace. The hardest thing to do is to win peace, while the easiest is to start a new war, he added.

Serbia and its people should not fall into the same trap they did in the 1990s, Tadic concluded.