Kosovo demands to immediately change Serbian car license plates
2022.10.25 16:36
Kosovo demands to immediately change Serbian car license plates
Budrigannews.com – In a move that could exacerbate ethnic tensions, Kosovo’s prime minister said on Tuesday that the country would defy Western calls for a 10-month delay in the implementation of a rule that requires ethnic Serbs to switch their car license plates to local ones.
Kosovo demands to immediately change Serbian car license plates
This year, the local Serbs who live in the northern part of the country have resisted the government of Kosovo’s Serb minority’s attempt to force them to change their old car plates. This resistance has been strong and sometimes violent.
The United States of America and the European Union, Kosovo’s main backers, have publicly pleaded with Prime Minister Albin Kurti to postpone rule for ten months to avoid ethnic strife. The government had given Serbs 60 days to obtain the new plates, beginning on September 1 and ending at the end of October.
Kurti told reporters in Pristina, referring to the late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, “We already delayed the deadline…the last date when all Kosovo citizens who have old car plates, which are a legacy of the Milosevic era, will be able to convert them into legitimate ones.”
According to Kurti, approximately 10,000 motorists need to switch out old vehicle registrations that were issued prior to 1999, when Kosovo was still a Serbian province.
During the war in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999, when the southern province was still part of Serbia under Milosevic’s rule, it is believed that more than 13,000 people perished.
Although approximately 50,000 ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo refuse to recognize Pristina’s authority and continue to be under Serbian control, Kosovo declared independence in 2008.
Since September 1, when Pristina postponed its last attempt to force its ruling over plates, talks between Kosovo and Serbia under the auspices of the European Union and U.S. envoys have failed to resolve the issue.
NATO, which has approximately 3,700 peacekeepers on the ground, has urged both nations to come up with a solution rather than intensify tensions already present in the region.
When asked what would happen on November 1 when the deadline expires, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters, “Difficult time is ahead of our people, and it would be crazy for me to predict anything.”
