2 minutes agoBBC: Disagreement over license plates raises tensions in Kosovo
Periskopi(4 years ago)
(4 years ago)A row over car plates seems an impossible reason to deploy troops in readiness and to clash with international partners. But Serbia and Kosovo are currently doing just that, reports the BBC. Kosovo's insistence that ethnic Serb residents must hand over their Serb license plates issued by Serbia is straining [...]
Kosovo's insistence that ethnic Serb residents must hand over their Serbia-set license plates is straining relations with its top international supporters, the EU and the United States.
KFOR peacekeeping troops are stepping up patrols in case of any incidents. And Serbia's Defence Minister says its troops are standing in a state of alert “to protect all citizens of Serbia, including Serbs in Kosovo”.
Shortly after midnight Tuesday, Kosovo police began giving the first written warnings, as the deadline for changing the license plates had expired. The first bidder was a woman coming from Serbia through the checkpoint in Jarinje, north of Kosovo.
The police announcement warned that it should remove the plates issued by Serbia from its car by November 21st, or face fines. But the driver objected, saying she would expect to hear from the government of Serbia before making any changes.
It seems there is little chance that Belgrade will change its position. It says Kosovo Serbs have every right to use plates issued by Serbia, reflecting Serbia's non-recognition of Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence.
Petar Petkovic has sifted the piles of documents collected at his desk at the Palace of Serbia. He stressed the clauses, which he insisted were evidence that authorities in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, have rejected agreements reached through EU-mediated dialogue.
“Pristina is the only blame here”, he told the BBC.
Not only is this an act of violating agreements related to dialogue, but we now have Pristina declaring the use of violence to implement this unreasonable” decision.
The claim to <x0 violence” refers to reports that police in Kosovo would seize cars with Serbian license plates. In fact, the current plan is slightly less dramatic.
After three early weeks of issuing written warnings, police will start providing fines of 150 euros. The next phase includes the seizure of plates with Pristina insisting that re-registering be completed by April next year.
Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Beslim was to explain all of this at the Security Conference in Belgrade last Friday. But Serbian police turned him back, allegedly for his own safety, before he arrived at the event.
He eventually appeared through video connection é and had not regretted that Kosovo had ignored EU and US prayers to postpone the move. Pristina was simply demanding that its laws be respected, he told the BBC.
“in the past, the EU has had the tendency to resolve issues by in time pushing them”, he said.
The choice only makes it the biggest problem and means that we just transfer the problem to the next bureaucratic in the EU. We don't think this is the best drug for handling long-term problems”.
Diplomats haven't tried to hide their concern. The EU said it was “agressive” that its advice to postpone the move for 10 months “has not been respected”.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill expressed outrage when he spoke at the same session of the Security Conference in Belgrade, attended by Besnik Bislimi.
“We have been talking about nuclear weapons recently”, he said. “
Hill said that focusing on small details would not resolve the fundamental issues between Kosovo and Serbia.
We would have wanted to have seen all this issue pushed around so that we could continue with more important issues. If there's an attempt to deal with the broader issues, then the license issues will fall to the site”.
Meanwhile, residents in northern Mitrovica -- the largest ethnic Serb majority city in Kosovo -- have been caught in the middle of this last time.
Jovana Radosavlevic lives there, leading the New Social Initiative an organisation promoting trust among communities. She says many ethnic Serbs are fed up feeling like drinks in disagreements between Belgrade and Pristina.
With the passing of time and especially in the new history, the Serb community in Kosovo had no agencies with any decision-making capacity”, she says.
“Even with Brussels dialogue and integration implementation, the local community was not asked how they feel, what they want and how they want it to become”.
If nothing else, the license dispute is serving to stress that efforts to normalise between Kosovo and Serbia have stalled. A proverbial resumption is very necessary.
