Kosovo, Serbia, and NATO peacekeepers were bracing for a new wave of ethnic tensions on Thursday (1 September) as Pristina presses ahead with a requirement for some 50,000 ethnic Serbs living in northern Kosovo to switch over their car license plates by the end of October.
Kosovo has implemented a range of measures to assert its sovereignty and enforce reciprocity with Belgrade after declaring independence in 2008 after a decade-long uprising against Serbia’s repressive rule.
One of these is the requirement for all Kosovo citizens to have license plates issued by Pristina institutions. This decision impacts the Serb-majority north, which refuses to recognise Kosovo institutions. This, along with a requirement for additional documents for Serbians entering the country, was due to come into force on 1 September.
The EU brokered a deal on ID documents seeing entry, and exit visas abolished for citizens of both countries when visiting the other, but the license plate issue was not resolved.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti was clear that there would be a two-month grace period for motorists to switch their plates, in a move described as “nothing more or less than an expression of the exercise of sovereignty.”
On Wednesday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he did not believe an agreement with Kosovo over the issue was possible. “From 1 September (Kosovo) will … try to force Serbs to change plates, … I don’t think they will have a big success,” he told reporters.
A push last year to implement the car licensing was met with protests by the Serbs in the north, who are backed by Belgrade and live close to Kosovo’s border with Serbia. Tensions flared again last month after Pristina announced the rule would go into effect on 1 September, prompting ethnic Serbs to set up roadblocks.
Tensions eased after Kurti, under US and EU pressure, agreed to postpone the switch. The roadblocks were removed under the watch of NATO, which has about 3,700 peacekeepers in Kosovo.
The defence ministry in Serbia, which refuses to recognise independent Kosovo and sees it as its integral part of Serbian territory, said on Wednesday it had stepped up training of some of its troops garrisoned near the border with Kosovo.
“The training is carried out in order to maintain a high degree of combat readiness of the engaged units and their ability to react quickly in case of need and ensure peace and security along the administrative line,” the ministry said.
But Major General Ferenc Kajari, commander of NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, sought to dispel fears of an imminent conflict as the peacekeepers fanned out across the area to pre-empt the possibility of violence.
“We don’t see any kind of indication even of a preparation for a war … Those who think responsibly they should not talk about war,” Kajari, a Hungarian, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.
Talks between Kosovo and Serbia under the auspices of the European Union and US envoys have so far failed to solve the issue, although Belgrade and Pristina last week reached a deal on the use of personal identity documents.
Serbs account for 5% of the 1.8 million people in Kosovo. Serbia accuses Kosovo of trampling on the rights of this ethnic minority, a charge denied by Pristina.
Kosovo is recognised by some 100 countries, including the United States and all but five EU members, but not by a number of other states, notably Russia and China.
