A row over car number plates in Kosovo is threatening to erupt into open unrest and one of the most serious regional crises in years as tensions between Serbia and its breakaway former province continue to mount.
The EU, US and Nato have expressed alarm after more than eight hours of emergency talks in Brussels on Monday failed to resolve the dispute over Kosovo’s plans to fine ethnic Serb residents who refuse to surrender their Belgrade-issued plates.
Hours before a 7am deadline when police were to start issuing the €150 (£130) fines, the Kosovan prime minister, Albin Kurti, agreed early on Tuesday to hold off for another 48 hours, saying he was “happy to work with the US and EU” to find a solution.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said both sides had shown a “complete lack of respect for their international obligations” and would bear “full responsibility for any escalation of violence that might occur on the ground in the following days”.
The US state department spokesperson, Ned Price, expressed Washington’s concern, calling on both sides to make “concessions to ensure that we do not jeopardise decades of hard-won peace in an already fragile region”.
Credit: cnn.com
