RFE/RL. Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti has postponed for 48 hours the fining of drivers whose cars still have license plates issued by Serbia. The request for the delay, made late on November 21, was made by the United States after talks between Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic failed to reach an agreement on the issue. Kurti said he is ready to work with Washington and the European Union to solve the issue over the next two days.
Reuters. Serbia's president warned on Monday (November 21) his country and Kosovo were on 'the verge of conflict'
Aleksandar Vucic gave a late news conference in Belgrade after a day-long meeting with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and the EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell in Brussels which ended without a breakthrough in a long-running dispute between the countries.
"I know that the representatives of the Serbs from Kosovo will tell me that they are fed up with everything and that they will not put up with it anymore," Vucic told reporters, appealing to Kosovo Serbs to keep the peace.
"So that we Serbs are not to blame. So that we do not provoke anyone or anything,” he added.
The European Union on Monday held an emergency meeting with Vucic and the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, to discuss the rising tension between the two countries.
An almost two-year-long dispute over licence plates has stoked tensions between Serbia and its former breakaway province which declared independence in 2008 and is home to a Serb minority in the north backed by Belgrade.
Hundreds of police officers, judges, prosecutors, and other state workers from the Serb minority quit their jobs earlier this month after the government in Pristina ruled that local Serbs must finally replace their car plates, issued by Serbia's unrecognised authorities in Kosovo, with Kosovo state ones.
