Presidents of the Kosovska Mitrovica and Zvecan municipalities, Krstimir Pantic and Dobrica Dobric respectively, stated Sunday evening that the barricades in northern Kosovo will be removed if the agreement reached in the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue is accepted by the Serbian parliament.

In a show on B92 television, Pantic stated that the Serbian government, parliament and Constitutional Court should state their opinion on the agreement, after which, if the agreement is accepted by all these institutions, the Serbs in Kosovo will remove the barricades.

At the same time, he expressed doubt that the Serbian parliament will accept the agreement.

Pantic, who is a member of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), stressed that conditions for removing the barricades have not been fulfilled, since the reasons why they were set up in the first place still exist, and those include the presence of the Kosovo customs and police at the Jarinje and Brnjak crossings.

Pantic and Dobric believe that the reached agreement violates the Serbian Constitution.

Pantic said that the problem is that the international community is implementing double standards, stating as example the barricades that Kosovo Albanians set up in 2009 near Orahovac, that KFOR had not tried to remove.

He pointed to the rubber bullets that KFOR used in actions in northern Kosovo, assessing that international forces are misleading the public by claiming that they are using non-violent methods, when they are actually using unauthorized means.

Pantic denied the claims that citizens are being forced to gather at the barricades, adding that the citizens gather voluntarily.

Dobric, a member of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), said that citizens consider the gathering at the barricades as a moral obligation, adding that local politicians are left on their own to face the problem that should be resolved by the state.